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TTS ORIGIN AND GOAL) 





BY THE SAME AUTHOR 


The Psychology of Alcoholism. 
London and New York, 1907. 


The Psychological Phenomena of 
Christianity. New York, 1908. 


Three Thousand Years of Mental 
Healing. New York, tort. 


<u OF PRINGE >) 

FEB 15 1926 
Bs, © 
<oaigar sew 






MIND 


ITS ORIGIN AND GOAL 





BY 
/ 
EHORGCE BAR LON CULLEN 


PH.D., D.D., LL.D. 


PRESIDENT OF COLGATE UNIVERSITY 





NEW HAVEN 
YALE UNIVERSITY PRESS 


LONDON *- HUMPHREY MILFORD »- OXFORD UNIVERSITY PRESS 


1925 


Copyright, 1925, by Yale University Press 


Printed in the United States of America 


PUBLISHED ON THE FOUNDATION 
ESTABLISHED IN MEMORY OF 
JAMES WESLEY COOPER 
OF THE CLASS OF 1865, YALE COLLEGE 


Digitized by the Internet Archive 
in 2022 with funding from 
Princeton Theological Seminary Library 


https://archive.org/details/minditsorigingoa0Ocutt._0 


THE 
JAMES WESLEY COOPER 
MEMORIAL PUBLICATION FUND 


THE present volume is the eighth work published by the Yale Uni- 
versity Press on the James Wesley Cooper Memorial Publication 
Fund. This Foundation was established March 30, 1918, by a gift 
to Yale University from Mrs. Ellen H. Cooper in memory of her 
husband, Rev. James Wesley Cooper, D.D., who died in New York 
City, March 16, 1916. Dr. Cooper was a member of the Class of 
1865, Yale College, and for twenty-five years pastor of the South 
Congregational Church of New Britain, Connecticut. For thirty 
years he was a corporate member of the American Board of Com- 
missioners for Foreign Missions and from 1885 until the time of his 
death was a Fellow of Yale University, serving on the Corporation 
as one of the Successors of the Original Trustees. 





TO THE TRUSTEES, FACULTY, ALUMNI, AND STUDENTS 
OF COLGATE UNIVERSITY 
THIS BOOK IS RESPECTFULLY DEDICATED 














PREFACE 


N the preparation of this book I have had the gen- 

eral reader particularly in mind. For many years 
the subject of evolution has been before the public, 
and scientists are agreed on this hypothesis as the 
most acceptable explanation of the method of prog- 
ress. The study and discussion have been confined 
almost entirely, however, to the application of this 
theory to the physical universe, and to the physical 
part of man. The mental life of man has been largely 
taken for granted or ignored. 

In the discussion of the evolution of intelligence 
I have tried to take not only a backward look, but a 
forward one as well. Recognizing the danger of the 
prophet’s role, I have endeavored to make that part 
dealing with the future suggestive rather than dog- 
matic. 

I am much indebted to those special investigators 
whose labors have been concerned with definite parts 
of the subjects which I have tried to assemble here, 
as well as to the pioneers who have made valuable 
contributions to the theme in its entirety. In defer- 
ence to the general reader I have left out definite 
references and footnotes, adding at the end a general 
bibliography of the works principally consulted in 
the preparation of this book. 


xl 


PREFACE 


The following persons have generously read the 
manuscript and have made valuable suggestions: 
namely, Dean Thomas Wearing, Professors A. E. 
Alton, W. M. Chester, and H. O. Whitnall, and Asso- 
ciate Professor D. A. Laird, of Colgate University, 
Professor S. Spidle of Acadia University, Mr. R. P. 
Bell, and Mrs. R. W. Tufts, to all of whom I wish to 
express publicly my obligation. In all my writings 
my wife, Minnie W. Cutten, is always my most severe 
and consequently my most valuable and valued critic. 


GrB.G 


Colgate University, 
Hamilton, New York. 


xil 


Xl. 





CONTENTS 


. Where did we get our minds? 
. Do we have animal minds? 
. Is mental development like that of 


biology and history? 


. What do instincts tell us about the past? 
. Has human intelligence superseded in- 


stinct? 


. Is morality connected with animal im- 


pulses? 


. Is religion natural to man? 
. Has intelligence increased in historic 


times? 


. Are we in danger of intellectual decline? 
. Are we in danger of intellectual decline? 


(Continued ) 
What future changes may we expect? 


Suggested reading list 


Index 


Xlli 


147 


164 


210 














MIND: ITS ORIGIN AND GOAL 





CHAPTER I 


WHERE DID WE GET OUR MINDS? 


HERE did we get our minds? The answer to 

this question will depend upon how we answer 
the question, “Where did we get our bodies?” To 
the person who believes in a special, momentary crea- 
tion for the world as a whole, or for any fraction of 
the world which needs explanation, the answer is 
ready and easy, if sometimes unconvincing and usu- 
ally unscientific. To those who travel the more la- 
borious path of patient study and serious thought, 
the answer is not so simple; and in addition to the 
main question, numerous subsidiary and closely re- 
lated problems are uncovered. 

We might simply take the mind for granted and 
not bother with a discussion of its origin, but such an 
attitude would stifle all investigation, our body of 
knowledge would rapidly dwindle, and we should ex- 
tinguish that which is the boast of our age, scientific 
investigation. Or, if we should be so crassly material- 
istic as to think of the mind as only a function of the 
brain, we should answer our problem by treating it 
simply as a part of the question of bodily origin. Very 


I 


MIND; ITS ORIGIN AND GOAL 


early in the revival of interest in the theory of evolu- 
tion, it was seen that the problems of bodily and of 
mental evolution were closely connected, if not in- 
dissolubly intertwined, and that the study of the one 
should involve the study of the other. Not only is the 
mind dependent upon the body, but one cannot go 
far in the study of bodily evolution without recog- 
nizing also that the mind has had an important in- 
fluence on the evolution of the body. Notwithstanding 
this apparently close relationship, we find that the 
study of bodily evolution has captured the imagina- 
tion and has demanded the services of thousands of 
men and women, some of them the most brilliant of 
their age; while the study of mental evolution has 
attracted very few. These few, however, in their un- 
tiring and scholarly investigations, have done much 
to add to our understanding of the problem and of 
the method of solution; but there remains very much 
yet to be done before we shall have arrived at the 
same understanding of the evolution of the human 
mind that we now have of the evolution of the human 
body. 

The results of Darwin’s monumental investiga- 
tions convinced those who studied the problem that 
human evolution was continuous with animal evolu- 
tion as far as bodily organs were concerned, and the 
inevitable corollary that mental evolution must be 
similarly related was soon recognized and easily 


2 


WHERE DID WE GET OUR MINDS? 


grasped by scholars everywhere. As early as 1863, 
Huxley said, “I may add the expression of my belief 
that the attempt to draw a psychical distinction be- 
tween man and the animal world is equally futile, 
and that even the highest faculties of feeling and of 
intellect begin to germinate in lower forms of life.” 
Herbert Spencer recognized that “if the doctrine of 
Evolution is true, the inevitable implication is that 
Mind can be understood only by observing how Mind 
is evolved.” J. G. Romanes, after a study of mental 
evolution in man, concluded, “I cannot help feeling 
that there is actually better evidence of a psychologi- 
cal transition from the brute to man, than there is of 
a morphological transition [change in form and struc- 
ture] from one organic form to another, in any of the 
still numerous instances where the intermediate links 
do not happen to have been preserved.” So we come 
gradually down to 1909, when President G. Stanley 
Hall said, “Some of us are already convinced that the 
human soul in all its power is just as much a product 
of evolution as the body.” 

With the problem of mental evolution always fac- 
ing the evolutionist, there were two tendencies to a 
misinterpretation of facts which, in the end, injured 
rather than helped the solutions. It was recognized 
that there was a great gulf between animal and 
human minds, and the tendencies were to elevate the 
animal mentality on the one hand and to detract from 


3 


MIND: ITS ORIGIN AND GOAL 


the human superiority on the other. This was done 
honestly and unconsciously, for what is more natural 
than to impute certain lofty, human, mental traits to 
certain animal reactions, especially when stories of 
animal intelligence could not well be verified and we 
could not readily call upon the animals to repeat 
them? The tendency to impute all sorts of human 
feelings and ideas to animals and even to flowers and 
trees is so common as to be an easily recognized trait, 
and is one of the bases of poetic fancy. 

Since the time when physiological psychology be- 
came an integral part of mental science, and was in- 
evitably and closely followed by experimental psy- 
chology, the study of comparative psychology has 
been more of an exact science, the definite mental re- 
lationship between animals and men has been estab- 
lished, and their reactions to the same stimuli have 
been measured and compared. If the so-called form 
of psychology known as Behaviorism shall have any 
value to psychology, it should be along a line similar 
to this. 

One reason why the study of mental evolution has 
not kept pace with that of bodily evolution has al- 
ready been stated; namely, because the investigators 
so Closely connected with the renewed study of evolu- 
tion in the middle of the last century were biologists 
rather than psychologists; and the impetus given 
by them to the study of organic evolution carried that 


4 


WHERE DID WE GET OUR MINDS? 


branch of the investigation along by the very force of 
its own momentum. 

There are two other reasons which may be con- 
sidered. In the first place, the study of the body is 
more easily accomplished. One may take a human 
bone and an animal bone, and, placing them side by 
side, compare them in size, in shape, in texture, and 
in use. The next day one returns and they are still 
there for further comparison. One cannot do that 
with sensations, emotions, or ideas. The very effort 
to compare them is likely to distort them. Begin to 
examine an emotion of anger in yourself for purposes 
of comparison, and the moment you stop to examine 
it, behold! it is gone. Even beginning with the sim- 
plest psychological processes, it is difficult for us to 
determine how animals see or hear, or what they see 
or hear compared with us. The line of least resistance 
is to confine one’s discussion to bodily evolution, and 
much remains yet to be accomplished in this depart- 
ment; but science, whatever else may be said about 
it, is never cowardly and never diffident. Thus the 
greater the problem the more anxious men are to at- 
tack it, and it is never a feature of science to deny 
facts;—they must be explained. Therefore, despite 
the difficulties involved, there are never wanting men 
to attempt to solve the problems, and day by day 
more light is being shed upon them. : 

The first investigators in comparative psychology 


5 


MIND: ITS ORIGIN AND GOAL 


were more interested in perfecting a proper method 
than in obtaining results. That inevitably caused an 
initial delay, but in the end it brought more and better 
results. Shortly after the revival of scientific learning 
in the middle of the last century, those who began ob- 
serving animals and reporting what purported to be 
psychological facts inevitably made mistakes and re- 
ported results due to faulty methods of observation 
and to erroneous interpretations. It was not for many 
years that sound methods were devised, and only re- 
cently are these bearing fruits. Some time will yet 
be needed before we get the full results. 

The other reason why the study of mental evolu- 
tion has not progressed as rapidly as that of bodily 
evolution is that objections to the former have been 
more strenuous. Even some persons who have recog- 
nized the arguments for bodily evolution and have 
accepted the theory have vigorously combated the 
theory of mental evolution as being incompatible 
with religious beliefs or aspirations. The claim has 
been made that the differences between human and 
animal mentality have been those not merely of quan- 
tity but of quality, and consequently that one could 
not have come from the other. Then, again, it injures 
our self-esteem and vaunted superiority to be too 
closely linked to the lower animals. These objections 
have had weight and have deterred investigation. 

Ever since the renewed study of evolution, in the 

6 


WHERE DID WE GET OUR MINDS? 


middle of the last century, there have been those who 
accepted this hypothesis as the probable explanation 
of the cosmic process, but demanded an interjection 
of special divine power at certain periods. Some have 
considered that only by means of an extraordinary 
application of such special power can we explain the 
origin of life or of men or of mentality. There are 
certain objections to this view: having traced the 
continuity of evolution through most of the process, 
it seems likely that the gaps represent our ignorance 
rather than a break in the process; that these gaps 
will likely be filled in by later investigation, and we 
shall then have to withdraw our theory of occasional 
application of divine power; that it intimates Nature 
had an imperfect plan or power and needs to be con- 
tinually renewing and reinvigorating both; and that, 
if there is a God, he only partially supports his 
world, or else only supports it a part of the time. It 
may be that the scientists who have insisted on the 
continuity of Nature have really been the better 
theologians. 

In regard to the gap between man and the lower 
animals, Darwin said: “The great break in the or- 
ganic chain between man and his nearest allies, which 
can not be bridged over by any extinct or living 
species, has often been advanced as a grave objection 
to the belief that man is descended from some lower 
form, but this objection will not appear of much 


7 


MIND: ITS ORIGIN AND GOAL 


weight to those who believe in the general principle 
of evolution. At some future period the civilized races 
of man will almost certainly exterminate the savage 
races of the world. At the same time the anthropo- 
morphous apes will no doubt be exterminated. The 
break between man and his nearest allies will then be 
wider, for it will intervene between man in a more 
civilized state as we may hope even than the Cau- 
casian and some ape as low as a baboon instead of as 
now between the Negro or Australian and the go- 
rilla.” 

The religious objection to mental evolution is based 
on the old fallacy that worth is determined by origin 
—a fallacy born of aristocracy, but very common in 
so-called democratic countries. This argument, which 
is frequently urged as a defense of religion, can 
hardly be valid among Christians; for did not the 
Founder of the Christian religion give as the supreme 
test, “By their fruits ye shall know them’? The reli- 
gious leaders of his time were very keen to test things 
by origins. They said, “Can any good thing come out 
of Nazareth?” When John the Baptist upbraided 
them, they claimed virtue because they were Abra- 
ham’s children, but he admonished them to “bring 
forth fruits worthy of repentance.” As that mar- 
vellous phrase-maker, Professor William James, has 
paraphrased it, “Not by their roots, but by their 
fruits ye shall know them.” The dignity of the hu- 

8 


WHERE DID WE GET OUR MINDS? 


man mind, then, in religious as in other relations, is 
not to be judged by its evolution or creation but by 
its accomplishments: “handsome is as handsome 
does.” 

There is lingering in the minds of some religious 
people a theory of the soul. I do not know the mean- 
ing of soul except as it is synonymous with the word 
“mind.” With some persons, however, there is an 
indefinite meaning of soul as a part of the existing 
mind; as that part which deals with religious as con- 
trasted with secular things; as that part which abides 
after death; and similar or other definitions. At other 
times and by other persons soul is thought of as the 
more inclusive term, and the mind which deals with 
ordinary things is considered a part of the soul. What- 
ever idea there is of soul, it usually involves very dis- 
tinctive qualitative differences as compared with any 
mental quality or qualities of animals, and not infre- 
quently presupposes a separate creation. Psychology, 
as a science, has not discovered such an entity. The ~ 
old faculty psychology, which assigned distinct men- 
tal faculties to different subjects, having been dis- 
carded, we realize that we do not have separate 
faculties to deal with religious occasions, but the 
same mental factors are used for all experiences. If 
we are to accept some of the conclusions of the 
Freudian school, we have to admit a development of 
some of our highest faculties through an even more 


9 


MIND: ITS ORIGIN AND GOAL 


lowly and humble process than we formerly believed; 
for Freud considers sexual elements to be indissolu- 
bly connected with the beginning and development 
of many of our higher mental powers and of our lofti- 
est ideals. Even accepting the testimony of the mental 
journey given by this school, it is not more repulsive 
than the journey which we believe the body has 
taken. Nature always works with humble materials, 
but how great have been her results! 

The value and need of a study of mental evolution 
is apparent. It should be carried on not only as an in- 
teresting study—a part of general culture—but also 
to answer the insistent inquiries from other branches 
of science which need the information furnished by 
such study to aid in a further development of their 
particular investigations. I have already referred to 
the psychic factor in evolution as a whole, and or- 
ganic evolution is asking further questions concern- 
ing the development of mind. In connection with 
human evolution the adjustment to environment is 
no longer bodily, but, at least chiefly, mental. If it is 
necessary for us to go to sea, we do not take the 
myriads of years necessary to adjust our bodies to 
a marine life, as the whale has had to do, but we use 
our minds to build boats. The strife with stronger ani- 
mals no longer depends upon the power of our blow, 
the sharpness of our claws and teeth, or the speed 
with which we can run; but upon our mentality in 


Io 


WHERE DID WE GET OUR MINDS? 


inventing guns and powder. In this connection, one 
naturally recalls the words of Carlyle: “Such I hold 
to be the genuine use of gunpowder; that it makes 
all men alike tall. Nay, if thou be cooler, cleverer 
than I, if thou have more mind, though all but no 
body whatever, then canst thou kill me first, and art 
the taller. Hereby, at last, is the Goliath powerless, 
and the David resistless; savage animalism is noth- 
ing, inventive spiritualism is all. Nay, I think with 
old Hugo von Trimberg, ‘God must needs laugh out- 
right, could such a thing be, to see his wondrous 
manikins here below.’ ” 

We are more apt now to use our minds to change 
our environment, than to let nature take the time 
necessary to change our bodies to accommodate 
themselves to the new environment. Thus we know 
that the adjustment of the organisms to their environ- 
ment, which has always been an important factor in 
survival, is in the human race now a matter largely of 
the mind, and less and less of the body. Some are 
willing to go astep further and affirm that bodily evo- 
lution in the human species is at an end, that indi- 
vidual mental evolution is finished, and that the next, 
and perhaps final, step in evolution is social; we are 
not yet all willing to subscribe to this. 

History covers so short a period, short in which to 
study evolution, that we are unable to affirm much 
concerning the changes which have taken place in 


El 


MIND: ITS ORIGIN AND GOAL 


the human mind or in the human body. Some in- 
vestigators have used the expedient of studying the 
savage and lower developed races of men as examples 
of our forefathers, thinking of them as “our con- 
temporary ancestors”; but this is not safe, for we 
have no guarantee that the higher developed races 
have travelled the same path for the last one hundred 
thousand years that these races have travelled or are 
now travelling. This anthropological study is un- 
doubtedly valuable, but its results must be compared, 
as. best they can, with the story of our own ancestry. 

We must recognize, however, that concurrent and 
interesting phenomena are to be found in the study 
of mental and bodily development, and that we can- 
not well understand the one without some knowledge 
of the other. The courses of the two are so intertwined 
and their reciprocal influence is so great that to delay 
the study of mental evolution is to retard the in- 
vestigations in bodily evolution. This has become so 
apparent that at times biologists have felt forced to 
take up the psychological investigation, a task for 
which they were not by training well fitted. 

A second reason for the necessity of the study, and 
in a field where such a study, limited as it has been, 
has already been of much value, is to aid us in ex- 
plaining some of our human mental processes of 
today. For years, as the study of mental science has 
developed, there have appeared certain processes 


I2 


WHERE DID WE GET OUR MINDS? 


which baffled investigators and for which no explana- 
tion could be given. We have recently found that they 
can only be explained by a reference to the past. The 
millenniums of experience through which the race has 
passed have left their impress; as Anatole France has 
so well said, “Nous étions déja si vieux quand nous 
sommes nés’”—we are already so old when we are 
born. Neither mind nor body can be explained if we 
think only in terms of the short span of individual 
life; recognizing man not only as an individual but 
as a member of a race with a long history, the ex- 
planation is less difficult. In animals we see certain 
mental processes in simple form, which in man are 
very complicated. 

I do not mean to imply that it is only in recent days 
that this has been recognized. The instincts, as in- 
heritances from the past, have been the subject of in- 
vestigation for centuries, but until the last quarter of 
a century they have been overshadowed by the at- 
tempt to prove that, different from the animals, man 
was controlled by reason and not by instincts. When 
it was declared that man had more instincts than the 
animals, a stir was noticed among some scholars; but 
a score of years in the present century has done more 
to show the dependence of mental states upon past 
racial experiences than all the years before. We recog- 
nize, now, that instincts provide the power which 
impels us to action, and that reason provides the ad- 


13 


MIND: ITS ORIGIN AND GOAL 


justment which is not furnished by the mechanical, 
instinctive action, in order that the instinctive im- 
pulse may reach a more sure and complete consum- 
mation. 

Two sources, which supplemented each other, have 
been most fertile in new knowledge for us; namely, 
the late war, and the investigations of the psycho- 
analytic and allied schools. The war showed us that 
the veneer of modern civilization was very thin, and 
that it required little to remove it and to return man 
to his prehuman or savage state. Evidence of this 
was more abundant in the late than in former wars, 
because larger masses of men were used and the 
strain on the nervous system, due to the conditions of 
modern warfare, revealed the weaknesses and made 
them more easily discernible. It is evident, too, that 
the comparatively short period of training, which the 
exigencies of the war made necessary, did not give 
sufficient time to adjust the mind and nervous mecha- 
nism of the soldier to the new conditions which he 
had to face. The second element, the modern studies 
in psychology, taught us to read the evidence which 
the war provided and to deduce more rational con- 
clusions. The evidence was very clear, and it was 
readily seen that the vaunted mental development of 
modern civilization, upon which we had depended so 
much, was really not to be trusted in an emergency; 
for the experiences of the past five thousand years 


14 


WHERE DID WE GET OUR MINDS? 


had not worked into muscle and nerve fiber, and in 
the testing days when one was forced to depend upon 
fundamentals the basis was found to be not the con- 
ventions of modern social life but the crude savagery 
of the pre-human ancestors, who for thousands of 
years had successfully won the battle against equally 
savage enemies. In less crude, but no less real, form 
the strain of modern life is revealing day by day the 
same prehuman traits, and the failure to recognize 
them, or, if recognized, the effort to conceal them has 
wrought havoc with minds not sufficiently strong to 
stand the pressure. Psychoanalysis has revealed other 
component factors of modern life beside the pre- 
human being and the mature gentleman, but of those 
we do not pause to speak; not because they are not 
important, but because they do not immediately con- 
cern our theme. 

The importance of this study may also be recog- 
nized when we think of it as a guide to eugenics. 
Whether we like it or not, the time is coming when 
we shall consider it just as important to develop and 
to maintain good human stock as we do now to breed 
the most desirable varieties of hogs or cattle or sheep. 
Mental tests recently made in connection with the 
drafted men of the United States Army have called 
attention to certain racial stocks of inferior quality, 
and the glorious idea of the melting pot has proved 


I5 


MIND: ITS ORIGIN AND GOAL 


even at its best to be a menace, and at its worst a 
serious means of degeneration. 

It is obvious that we cannot use the same freedom 
in experimentation in human as in animal stock; or, 
at least, we have not in the past thought it expedient 
to do so. What information we have obtained con- 
cerning human eugenics has come through the in- 
vestigation of chance matings. The results of these 
have been very significant, and many lines of pro- 
cedure have been indicated. It is apparent, however, 
that in a large way we must look back to the past and 
judge the future thereby. If we are able to obtain 
some indication of how the race has advanced up to 
the present, there must be some clues for future 
action. 

Of course we recognize that modern philanthropy 
has greatly complicated the problem. All sorts of un- 
fit are now saved, and in many cases permitted to 
perpetuate their kind. Ten thousand years ago, or 
longer, the conditions were such that these could not 
have survived the fierce competition and the strenu- 
ous mode of life, and the stock was kept purer and 
the strongest physically and mentally were the pro- 
genitors of the future stock. Careful investigation 
must be made to determine just who are the unfit— 
the unfit for the purpose of breeding the best human 
beings—and these must not be permitted to perpetu- 
ate their kind. 

16 


WHERE DID WE GET OUR MINDS? 


There is no doubt but that we must pay attention 
to the physical, for man is still an animal and very 
much of an animal; but that kind of physical must be 
developed which forms the best basis for mental de- 
velopment. The strain of modern life demands this. 
Conditions of the present must be compared with 
those of the past; and taking lessons from animal 
life, past human life, and the present race of men, an 
adapted type can be produced, just as different kinds 
of horses or dogs are produced to meet different con- 
ditions. To meet this rather difficult demand, there 
can be no greater aid than that which should come 
from the investigations into the evolution of the 
mind. 

Mental tests can be of great value. Those who have 
advocated them most have never claimed as much 
for them as have their opponents. The latter have 
demanded tasks beyond the reach of present prog- 
ress, and because they could not meet the demand 
they have been condemned. But it is only potential 
mentality of a certain sort that can be measured. A 
high score in mental test may be associated with cer- 
tain deficiencies which would make it undesirable to 
have such an individual as an ancestor. Emotional 
stability may be even more important in these days 
of complicated civilization, or at least as important as 
mental power—a condition perhaps the opposite of 
those in a lower form of development. 


17 


MIND: ITS ORIGIN AND GOAL 


I simply mention some of the eugenic problems 
which are facing us and with which we must soon 
grapple. There are many more; but however com- 
plicated and difficult they may be, it seems certain 
that more and more they must be concerned with 
mental development, and that a study of the past 
method of development of the human mind must be 
increasingly beneficial. 

The last seventy-five years have been devoted to 
a study of the human body and its evolution. We have 
been for this three-quarters of a century getting the 
body adjusted to its environment—the environment 
of modern civilization—and eliminating diseases, 
many of them the result of an endeavor to adjust the 
body to its new environment. This task is not yet 
completed, but great progress has been made, and the 
work is well under way. The next three-quarters of a 
century must be devoted to a study of the mind, with 
an endeavor to get it adjusted, and to eliminate men- 
tal diseases incident to the new environment, an en- 
vironment changing so rapidly as to make adjust- 
ment increasingly difficult. To meet this need we are 
seeing the beginning of mental hygiene and of other 
preventive measures, as well as many attempts at a 
curative means for mental troubles. 

The fourth result of value which can reasonably 
be anticipated by a study of mental evolution is addi- 
tional proof of the theory of evolution itself. Most of 

18 


WHERE DID WE GET OUR MINDS? 


the proofs of human evolution which have so far 
been presented are connected with the bodies of men, 
but there is every reason to assume that when as 
much time and thought have been expended on the 
investigation of mental evolution as many evidences 
will be adduced. There are vestigial factors of a men- 
tal character as there are vestigial physical organs, 
the former pointing backward to a prehuman an- 
cestry as clearly as the latter. There are certain hu- 
man emotions and reactions and reflexes which can be 
compared with those of animals as surely as the tibias 
of both can be placed side by side and observed, and 
the relationship is equally apparent. There is as clear 
a field for a study of the origin of species from a men- 
tal standpoint as there ever was from a physical. As a 
working hypothesis, evolution as a method of the 
world’s creation, not a cause, is now well established; 
additional evidence will not only confirm the conclu- 
sions of present science, but will also add to our 
knowledge of how we got our world. This in turn will 
be valuable in helping us solve present, pressing 
problems. 

It might be well to pause a moment to say that only 
among those ignorant of the theory of evolution, or 
among those who intentionally try to misrepresent 
the theory, is it said that man descended from mon- 
keys or apes or any other living species. It is alto- 
gether likely that the distant ancestors of simian and 


19 


MIND: ITS ORIGIN AND GOAL 


man were the same, as the ancestors of the horse and 
the camel were the same. The separation from the 
parent stock, which was neither ape nor man, took 
place at least five hundred thousand years ago, and 
probably at a much earlier time. The gap between 
the descendants has been continually widening. 


20 


CHAPTER II 


DO WE HAVE ANIMAL MINDS? 


HE scientists, who have worked so untiringly 

on the subject of organic evolution, have done 
much not only to prove that the theory of evolution 
is a working hypothesis but to give the actual account 
of the method by which the multiplicity of animal 
life came into being, and they have led up to and in- 
cluded man in their investigations. They have shown 
that bone for bone and muscle for muscle the bodies 
of animals and men are homologous, 2.e., correspond- 
ing in derivation and development; and thus the 
theory of descent is more firmly established. 

This is true in regard to bodies. Is it not also true 
regarding minds? Do we not have homologous mental 
factors as we have physical factors? When a dog and 
a man go out in the cold of winter or the heat of sum- 
mer do they not both alike feel cold and heat? Are 
their responses not alike? When struck unexpectedly 
do they not both start suddenly? Are not their nu- 
merous instincts so much alike as to be readily iden- 
tified? Do they not both visibly show fear, anger, and 
other emotions connected more or less closely with 
instincts? Without a moment’s hesitation we inter- 
pret the dog’s behavior by saying he is cold or he is 
hungry or he is angry, simply by knowledge of our 


21 


MIND: ITS ORIGIN AND GOAL 


own behavior when experiencing certain mental 
states. 

One must not be unmindful of anthropomorphism 
—the psychologist’s error—which ascribes human 
attributes to the lower animals. It is not difficult to 
fall into this error. A mother thinks of a crying baby 
as suffering intensely when its mental development 
is not sufficient to permit of suffering at all, as adults 
interpret the word. Likewise lower animals are sup- 
posed to suffer in the same way as human beings 
would under similar circumstances. The reactions of 
animals, or the results of instinct, are not infre- 
quently interpreted as a marvellous display of intelli- 
gence. The dog or the horse is credited with extraor- 
dinary knowledge and wisdom. These anthropomor- 
phic errors are common, but, making due allowance 
for them, there are certain animal responses which 
are undoubtedly similar to human responses under 
like circumstances, and indicate similar mental 
processes. Men who have had to deal with animals in 
a practical way, such as hunters and trainers, owe 
their success to the fact that they rely on the inter- 
pretation of animal emotions on the basis of human 
emotions. They accordingly look for a certain line of 
action, and because they are able thus to anticipate 
it correctly it gives them success, and not infre- 
quently saves their lives. 

Where, then, is the difference between men and 


22 


DO WE HAVE ANIMAL MINDS? 


animals so great as to lead some to say that there is 
an impassable gulf, so marked and extensive as to 
make the theory of evolution untenable as far as the 
mental life is concerned? This great difference, which 
some have interpreted as a difference of quality 
rather than of quantity, is in the power of human 
beings to handle ideas and to form ideals. 

There is no doubt a wide gap between man and the 
species nearest to him. This gap is so wide and deep 
that the difference is designated as qualitative. Is 
there any way of accounting for this? There is: it is 
due to the ability of the human animal to speak and 
later to write. The ability to speak opened up a social 
life for mankind impossible among lower animals. 
This in itself must have added much to the develop- 
ment of the species. More than that it laid the foun- 
dation of a mass of human knowledge which was 
passed down from one generation to another, plans 
for the completed structure of which were consum- 
mated when writing was discovered and printing was © 
invented. 

Moreover, the ability to speak and to write makes 
the mental distance between men and animals seem 
greater than it is, for while language is an extremely 
useful tool it is a very showy one, and is likely to 
exaggerate the appearance of intelligence of one using 
it. In some cases, loquaciousness undoubtedly hides a 
mental defect. A person who has had various experi- 


23 


MIND: ITS ORIGIN AND GOAL 


ences, due to changing occupations and acquaintance 
with different localities, is likely to have his native 
ability overestimated by his ready tongue. Speech 
may thus cause an exaggeration of the apparent men- 
tal differences in favor of the speaker, but it is never- 
theless a most valuable aid to development in the 
race. 

We should recognize clearly the confusion in the 
meanings of the word “inheritance.” There is that 
mass of knowledge, the gift of the ages, which is 
handed down to us and taught to us in home, in 
school, and in university, so that we start where our 
fathers left off, and go on to higher things. We speak 
of inheriting this knowledge. This is designated as 
our social inheritance. Then the physiological char- 
acteristics and mental traits which come to us from 
our parents we speak of as our biological inheritance. 
It is in the matter of social inheritance that man has 
the great advantage over his simian cousins, due, 
however, to his superior biological inheritance. 

If we could imagine a human child starting only 
with his biological inheritance, and entirely devoid 
of his social inheritance, learning only by experience 
or by the example of parents who had started in the 
same way, should we expect a much higher standard 
of living than that enjoyed by the anthropoid apes? 
However great the intelligence, we should not expect 
to see it blossom out in a single individual, if this 


24 


DO WE HAVE ANIMAL MINDS? 


individual were devoid of the wisdom of his race. 
Under no circumstances can we conceive of such a 
person showing a very great variation from the apes. 
It has required generations of development, in which 
the mental life of each generation has been built upon 
the experience of hundreds of former generations, to 
arrive at our present state, which shows such an ap- 
parently wide gap between us and the anthropoid 
apes as to lead us to think of the difference as quali- 
tative. McDougall gives us a rather full account of 
his conception of the “behavior of the natural man,” 
a man living without the aid of and in detachment 
from all tradition. He pictures him as we imagine 
the cave man of prehistoric times to have lived, and 
not much above the status of the gorilla, according 
to the latest investigations in the mode of living of 
these apes. 

We have the history of Kaspar Hauser, which, if 
we can separate fact from the entanglement of wild 
fancy and lurid mystery in the more than one thou- 
sand articles written on his case, seems to throw some 
light on this point. He was found at Nurnberg in 
1828, and, according to a letter in his possession, he 
was born in 1812, and had been left on the doorstep 
of the hut of an Hungarian peasant, who adopted him 
and reared him in strict seclusion. He had been kept 
in a low, dark cell, and had never seen the face of the 
man who brought him food. He went to sleep after 


25 


MIND: ITS ORIGIN AND GOAL 


partaking of a drink given to him periodically, and 
on awakening found his nails cut and clean clothing 
on his body. He was considered idiotic, but when 
taught, was able to learn, not normally but consider- 
ably. In the four years of his life after he was dis- 
covered, he developed more like a normal child, but 
his early, violent death put an end to any further 
research in his particular case. The autopsy on his 
body revealed a small brain, giving evidence of a 
lack of development, but without abnormalities. We 
have the histories of about one dozen other feral chil- 
dren. 

This mass of social inheritance, which accumulated 
more and more and gathered greater momentum 
as generations marched by, was reason enough for 
the rapid advance of man, whereby he easily out- 
stripped his less fortunate cousins; after millenniums 
this advantage has emphasized an apparent mental 
development, which leads us to speak of the difference 
as qualitative. It would, however, give an additional 
advantage, an advantage to which we called particu- 
lar attention when designating the difference between 
the two. 

Without language, it is difficult, if not impossible, 
to have concepts; and quite impossible to have any 
commerce with others regarding concepts. Sign lan- 
guage might suffice to communicate regarding sensa- 
tions, perceptions, and even instincts and emotions; 

26 


DO WE HAVE ANIMAL MINDS? 


but what sign language is able to communicate to us 
a concept? The same is true concerning ideas and 
ideals. The whole ideational experience of man is 
largely, though not entirely, dependent upon his 
ability to speak and to write. This difference, so 
boundless in appearance, can be traced back to 
speech, the beginning of which we undoubtedly find 
in the lower animals. 

Psychologists, however, have not been content 
with this explanation that the difference is accounted 
for by the ability to speak, but have sought to trace 
more definitely the relation between the higher men- 
tal qualities, as found in men, and the mentality of 
the lower animals. Thorndike has contended, with 
the support of many others, that the relationship can 
be clearly established. After numerous experiments 
with lower animals, especially with monkeys, he 
comes to the conclusion that the higher mental proc- 
esses depend upon “the number, speed of formation, 
permanency, delicacy, and complexity of associa- 
tions.” Association adds no new facts; it simply sorts, 
connects, and makes available what facts we already 
have. Five hundred new subscribers to a telephone 
exchange do not increase the number of inhabitants 
in a town, but they do help in the effective transac- 
tion of business. This is the kind of advance that man 
has apparently made. 

That animals have the power of making associa- 


27 


MIND: ITS ORIGIN AND GOAL 


tions there can be little doubt, and the higher in the 
scale, the more easily are associations handled, until 
the climax is reached in man. Thorndike himself gives 
us many examples, and Holmes presents us with ex- 
amples too numerous even to mention. To show the 
form of the experiment and the responses of the dif- 
ferent animals, let me quote a few cases. 

Let us note in passing that there are various ideas 
of proof of intelligence, but it is generally considered 
that if an individual is able to learn from experience, 
and to modify his behavior, whether instinctive or 
otherwise, on account of this experience, we then have 
an indication of intelligence. Based on this a number 
of experiments have been performed by which ani- 
mals have been tested, and different degrees of in- 
telligence have been thereby shown. It has even been 
claimed that the amoeba learns from experience. 

Professor Yerkes took a crawfish and placed it at 
one end of a tank, some food being placed at the other 
end. The tank was divided longitudinally by a parti- 
tion. If the crawfish went to one side of the partition 
it entered a blind alley, if to the other side it reached 
the food. After some time and many trials it in- 
variably took the side which led to the food. When the 
blind alley was changed to the other side, the crawfish 
eventually learned to change its path so as to reach 
the food. 

Professor McDougall put food in a box which 

28 


DO WE HAVE ANIMAL MINDS? 


could be opened only by pressing down a board, turn- 
ing a latch, and depressing a lever in order. These 
things his dog learned to do by the trial and error 
method, and eventually was able to accomplish this 
feat rapidly and correctly. 

Professor Thorndike’s experiments with monkeys 
were still more successful, for monkeys showed a de- 
cided superiority over cats and dogs. By means of 
food rewards, they were encouraged to attempt the 
opening of boxes fastened by bolts, bars, hooks, 
latches, or string, and not only accomplished the task 
comparatively quickly, but remembered how to re- 
peat it after intervals as long as eight months. 

In none of these cases did imitation play a very 
important, if a fractional, part; neither was there 
any suggestion toward success through reasoning, 
for the latter includes a comparison of past experi- 
ence with new and more or less difficult phenomena. 

There is an incident reported of a gorilla trained 
by Miss Cunningham in London. One day, when the 
gorilla was young, Miss Cunningham put on a light 
dress preparatory to going out. He begged to be taken 
on her lap before she left, but was refused on account 
of being dusty. Thereupon, he threw himself upon 
the floor and sobbed like a child. No heed being paid 
to him, he got up, found the daily paper and spread 
it over her lap. Similar cases have been recorded. 

Professor Thorndike further calls attention to the 


29 


MIND: ITS ORIGIN AND GOAL 


fact that a characteristic of human thinking is the 
finer analysis of situations, and the division of situa- 
tions into smaller parts. Animals, he thinks, perceive 
things more as a whole, while the power of human 
discrimination causes the associations to be more 
numerous and delicate; consequently more refined 
relations appear. This finer analysis is in harmony 
with the whole process of evolution as we see it in the 
bodily development. 

A young child grasps things in the gross very much 
as an animal does, and shows its development by the 
finer distinctions which it is able to make in defini- 
tions and in rational processes. James’s famous 
phrase in describing infant impressions as a “great, 
blooming, buzzing confusion” shows the start of men- 
tality as he conceived it, and that progress of de- 
velopment naturally came through differentiating the 
elements of which the confusion consisted. 

We can see how the finer analysis, characteristic 
of the human animal, and the additional number and 
delicacy of associations, which is another character- 
istic of human life, might work reciprocally in the de- 
velopment of each. With the disintegration of mental 
processes into more elemental factors, it is most natu- 
ral that associations should become more numerous 
and more refined, and with this kind of association 
the mental processes would have to be smaller and 
more particular. When the experiences become more 


30 


DO WE HAVE ANIMAL MINDS? 


definite and less confused, other phenomena of rea- 
soning readily appear, all based on a comparison of 
one with the other according to the well-known rules 
of association, for it seems impossible for a large 
body of experiences to remain quiescent; the mind 
naturally brings them together in some form of com- 
parison. 

Even children, whose conclusions are usually er- 
roneous, show the faculty of separating experiences 
into classes, and of comparing them in a way indicat- 
ing the beginning of reasoning, which later exhibits 
its full power when the experiences are better classi- 
fied and when others which are necessary to a full 
knowledge of the subject are obtained. When these do 
appear, the mental processes seem to show new 
powers, so that the difference between the new condi- 
tion and the former impresses itself on one as being 
qualitative. “The intellectual evolution of the race,” 
to quote Thorndike again, “‘consists in an increase in 
the number, delicacy, complexity, permanence, and 
speed of formation of such associations. In man this 
increase reaches such a point that an apparently new 
type of mind results, which conceals the real con- 
tinuity of the process.” 

We must recognize that if we prove definitely that 
the mental life of man and of lower animals is similar 
in kind, and that the difference is only one of degree, 
it does not prove that man received his mind by the 


31 


MIND: ITS ORIGIN AND GOAL 


process of evolution. It simply removes one object- 
tion—and the principal one—which has been raised 
against the evolutionary theory when applied to the 
mental life of mankind. 

We have found that the mental differences between 
animals and men under close analysis seem to be 
quantitative rather than qualitative, and that they are 
found most frequently in the different forms of asso- 
ciation of experiences. When speaking of the develop- 
ment of language from a common source, Professor 
Sayce said, “Differences of degree become in time 
differences of kind.” Let us admit, for the moment, 
that the difference as we see it today is qualitative; 
is that admission absolutely destructive of the evolu- 
tion theory as applied to mental life, and must we 
look elsewhere for an explanation? I believe not; this 
difference might almost be expected. Variety seems to 
be the aim of nature, and the greater the variety the 
more natural are the phenomena. 

The terms “survival of the fittest” and “natural 
selection” seem to have awakened an antagonistic 
reaction on the part of many people, especially those 
who oppose evolution on supposedly religious 
grounds. If there is any aim in evolution, any design 
in nature, what could be more rational, moral, or 
religious than that the fittest should survive? Our 
experiments in making possible the artificial survival 
of the unfit have not been so successful as to make us 


32 


DO WE HAVE ANIMAL MINDS? 


believe that the doctrine of survival is wrong. If God 
is in his world working through nature, we should 
expect that he would ordain that the fittest should 
survive. Is not that also the Christian doctrine of 
immortality? The conclusion should not be drawn 
from this that I believe the Darwinian conception of 
natural selection to be the one and sufficient ex- 
planation of evolution, for evidently many other fac- 
tors enter in; but there seems to be no just cause for 
the antagonism which has been engendered to it as 
one factor. 

Nature seems to go about this task in a roundabout 
way. The primary aim does not seem to be to produce 
better products, but different ones; however, when 
all the different ones are produced, the best one, 7.e., 
the fittest out of all the varieties, is the one which sur- 
vives. This lust for variety, which is so apparent as 
to need no proof, is the explanation of the differences, 
qualitative or quantitative. It is for this reason that 
I say that the widest differences might be expected 
and might seem most natural. 

Spencer’s definition of evolution is surely cumber- 
some, but valuable after all. Said he, ‘Evolution is an 
integration of matter and concomitant dissipation of 
motion, during which the matter passes from a rela- 
tively indefinite, incoherent homogeneity, to a rela- 
tively definite, coherent heterogeneity, and during 
which the retained motion undergoes a parallel trans- 


oe 


MIND: ITS ORIGIN AND GOAL 


formation.” The essence of this definition is that 
there is a continual change from the homogeneous to 
the heterogeneous, from the general to the special. 
This change is practically always in one direction— 
from the coarser to the finer, from the lower to the 
higher; and after an organ or a function progresses 
through several stages, it can scarcely be recognized 
as of any relation to its prototype, the difference be- 
ing not simply quantitative (although it may be only 
that) but qualitative. 

Organic evolution teems with cases of this kind, 
and they may be used as examples to prove the fact, 
and as analogies to point to the method. Literally 
thousands of cases could be presented, but we must 
content ourselves with mention of only a few. Since 
the early development of the vertebrates, practically 
no new bones have been added; but many of the 
bones have very different uses and appearance. Even 
in mammals it is difficult to realize that bone for bone 
they are the same, and that they can be so readily 
compared. Take for example the three little bones in 
the middle ear, known as the hammer, the anvil, and 
the stirrup. Early vertebrates had no middle ear, 
and consequently could not have had these bones. 
Though it is true they did not have these identical 
bones or any bones used for this purpose, there were 
three little bones used in the articulation of the jaw, 
which are not found in man. What has happened? In 


34 


DO WE HAVE ANIMAL MINDS? 


human beings they have moved up to perform a 
higher and more specialized task in the process of 
hearing. As far as use is concerned, the difference is 
qualitative; but they are corresponding bones in the 
different species. To refer to another part of the ear; 
the eustachian tube, we are told by biologists, has 
been developed from the first gill slit of the fish. 
This little passageway, from the throat to the middle 
ear, permits the pressure of air in the middle ear to 
be equalized with that outside, and hence makes hear- 
ing possible, or, at least, makes it keener. No one 
would say that either in form or in function the two 
organs are now alike either quantitatively or quali- 
tatively. 

Let us take one other example which is more ap- 
parent to most people—the use of the fore limb. With 
practically all vertebrates, except man and the an- 
thropoid apes, the fore limb is used principally for 
locomotion. Sea animals use it for propelling them- 
selves in the water, and land animals for walking; 
the fish as a fin, the horse as a leg. Compare them 
with the delicately constructed and marvellously use- 
ful hand of a human being; yet bone for bone they 
are similar. Imagine the perch with his finger nails 
as sharp spines, or the horse with one finger nail as a 
hoof trying to thread a needle or to play a flute! The 
progression has been from the homogeneous to the 
heterogeneous as far as structure and use are con- 


55 


MIND: ITS ORIGIN AND GOAL 


cerned, yet no new material is added. The difference 
between the paw or hoof of an animal and the hand of 
a man is such as might well be called qualitative, but 
we can trace the descent fairly well. 

Let us take one further illustration, this time from 
the mental realm. We are hearing much today of 
sublimation. What do we mean by that? It is a proc- 
ess by which one mental factor, which seems for 
some reason to be less desirable or expressible in its 
present form or use, can be repressed, and a new and 
more desirable outlet found. It is most commonly ap- 
plied to instincts. For example, if the sexual instinct 
is found to be too strong, or exercised in a way not 
compatible with the best interests of the individual, 
by repressing this expression and at the same time 
providing some other creative function, the instinct 
may with advantage express itself definitely and con- 
tinuously in the new form. This creative work may be 
the painting of a picture, the writing of a story, or the 
building of a house. This is very similar to what Dr. 
Thomas Chalmers called in the language of his day, 
“the expulsive power of a new affection,” and the re- 
sults, expressed in the religious experience of his 
time, were practically identical. To be able to change 
the direction of the expression of so strong and vital 
an instinct as that of sex shows a tendency to variety 
in natural processes, a progression from the lower 

36 


DO WE HAVE ANIMAL MINDS? 


to the higher, and a result to be classed as qualitative 
rather than simply quantitative. 

From what has been said in the first part of this 
chapter, it does not seem that the difference between 
animals and men is a matter of mental quality; but 
suppose that we should decide that it is, that does not 
seem to shatter the evolution argument. Association 
of experiences, so common in animals, may not seem 
much like the higher mental and moral products of 
man, although association always shows itself in 
these in some of its various forms. The difference, as 
great as it may be, is in the right direction. In being 
more diversified, and in serving a higher purpose, it 
is just what we might expect, if there is really design 
in nature, if there is a rational God, guiding in a large 
and God-like way the destiny of his world. 

There are some, however, who go a step further 
and contend that the impassable dividing line be- 
tween animals and men is not in the mental but in the 
moral realm, and that man shows his special qualities 
by being a moral and religious being. Years ago 
Henry Drummond called attention to the fact that 
self-preservation was not the first law of nature, but 
that altruism, as shown in mother love and in the in- 
stincts of the herd, was more powerful. It is inevi- 
tably so; for if not, the race would perish: the parents 
must be willing to sacrifice themselves, even unto 
death, if the species is to be propagated. These al- 


O7 


MIND: ITS ORIGIN AND GOAL 


truistic impulses or instincts are the foundation of 
morals in the human being, and they are very clearly 
seen in the animal world—sometimes more clearly 
than among human beings. 

We realize that moral judgments are not different 
from other judgments, for the same psychic proc- 
esses are in use in both; but the sense of moral 
obligation is at least stronger if not unique in human 
beings. What has already been said about qualitative 
differences regarding mental processes is equally true 
regarding moral experiences. This uniqueness is no 
disturbing factor in the theory. 

There is one other point about the moral life as 
found in man which seems significant, and this sig- 
nificance shows itself in two ways. The evolution 
theory places the moral life at the pinnacle of de- 
velopment, and if there is such a thing as design in 
nature, then the conclusion from this theory is that 
the aim of creation, “the last of life for which the 
first was made,” is the moral life. Any theory of crea- 
tion does not, or cannot, so dignify or emphasize the 
moral life as does evolution. It is, of course, im- 
possible for us to say that there will not be a higher 
and more God-like development; but the moral and 
religious elements of human nature are evidently the 
highest development up to the present time. 

The other significant statement is that we prac- 
tically know that the moral and religious life is the 

38 


DO WE HAVE ANIMAL MINDS? 


latest development. How do we know this? If the 
moral element in mankind were the result of creation, 
and as important as we believe it to be, we should ex- 
pect it to be so created as to be the most firm and 
steadfast part of our lives—that supposition seems 
reasonable. As a matter of fact we find the very op- 
posite to be the case. In cases of accident to the brain, 
brain diseases, and mental troubles, the moral and 
religious elements seem to be the first ones to go. 
Examples of this are too numerous to need citing. 
Persons who have been the most exemplary morally 
and religiously, after mental troubles frequently lose 
all semblance of morality, and if religious emotions 
remain they are grotesque and degrading. 

This is not only true individually, but it is true of 
groups of people. The recent study of the crowd 
shows it to be unmoral rather than immoral, and not 
restrained by moral ideals. When men operate as a 
group they are taken back many millenniums, for the 
gregarious instinct is much older than they are—it 
carries them back to a time before morals had de- 
veloped, and they act accordingly. The mob is not 
only unmoral, but another of its traits is that it is 
destructive, never constructive: a characteristic of 
the herd. Thousands—yes, millions—of years are 
sloughed off in a few minutes, and the fundamen- 
tals of the gregarious instinct are apparent. This is 
another indication that morality is the late product 


39 


MIND: ITS ORIGIN AND GOAL 


of the process of evolution; but, as we shall see later, 
it developed within the herd when intelligence had 
advanced considerably. When a group of people 
drops the veneer of civilization, and in reality, of 
humanity, and becomes a part of a mob, we ordi- 
narily say of the individuals that consciousness is de- 
throned and subconsciousness plays the leading role. 
This gregarious instinct, rooted and grounded in na- 
ture before consciousness was vigorous, is now of 
subconscious origin and operation. 

There are other ways in which we may examine 
the subconsciousness to obtain a glimpse of the his- 
tory of development, chief among which is through 
hypnotism. While it deals with the subconsciousness, 
hypnotism is a communication between individuals, 
and not connected with a group: the keynote of it is 
the rapport between two individuals only, the subject 
and the operator. In hypnosis the moral factor is 
prominent, for the operator has complete control over 
the subject, except that the latter refuses to obey any 
command which does violence to his moral nature. He 
is as immoral in hypnosis as in waking life, but not 
more So. : 

Individualism is a later growth in the human race 
than gregariousness, for individuals are always liable 
to be caught into a mob and to revert to primitive 
conditions. Extroversion, when the mind is actively 
occupied with objects and incidents outside of itself, 


40 


DO WE HAVE ANIMAL MINDS? 


is a characteristic of youth—it is collectivism; intro- 
version, when the mind is turned in upon itself for 
examination, contemplation, or brooding, is a more 
mature stage and characteristic of age—it is indi- 
vidualism. Youth wants company and most easily 
forms mobs—college students, for example; age ap- 
preciates solitude. The individualism which is a 
prominent feature of hypnosis is naturally associated 
with the moral nature, for both developed late and 
are more or less connected. We therefore find them 
inseparable in the hypnotic condition. 

Even with the development of morals, of which 
we pride ourselves at the present time, they are still 
largely an individual matter; at least it may be said 
that individual morals are far better than those of 
the group. As a group, or nation, we permit immoral 
practices in our governments that we would not coun- 
tenance in individuals, and smile at them in an in- 
dulgent manner. We may even applaud plunder, 
theft, dishonesty, lying, and sharp practices on the 
part of our government in its dealings with other na- 
tions: practices which we would not, for a moment, 
condone in an individual. The group still exhibits 
the unmorality of the early gregarious instinct, the 
individual the morality which developed late in the 
history of the herd, and was carried with him when 
his ancestor separated from the herd. This morality, 


4I 


MIND: ITS ORIGIN AND GOAL 


valuable as it is, is yet very unstable on account of 
its late appearance. 

The history of nations shows that under the severe 
strain of higher civilization the morality of the nation 
is the first element to be affected, and the moral 
breakdown the first symptom of degeneration. Some 
students of history opine that the strain of modern 
civilization is increasing so rapidly that it is doubtful 
if our mentality can stand under the pressure. They 
even go so far as to say that there are serious symp- 
toms of a moral collapse, the inevitable harbinger 
of the fall of any civilization. Whether or not this 
interpretation of present conditions is true or false, 
the fact remains that the instability of the individual 
and the weakness of the collective moral and religious 
life are two of the chief characteristics of modern 
life. Creation cannot explain this, but evolution can. 
As the latest development of the process it is natu- 
rally the most unstable. Those mental processes, 
sometimes called vegetative, which we share with the 
lowest forms of animal life—perhaps with the vege- 
table life—persist when all the higher mental proc- 
esses have ceased and when life is hanging by a 
thread. They are coexistent with life itself; life is 
largely conditioned on them. The processes which 
we share with higher animals only (e.g., mammals) 
are well ingrained into the body, but less so than 
those just mentioned. The processes which are ap- 


42 


DO WE HAVE ANIMAL MINDS? 


parently unique in human beings are more unstable, 
not having had time yet to become an indissoluble 
part of our organism, and being more or less on trial. 

Even if we admit the assertion that the moral ex- 
periences of mankind are unique and vastly different 
from those of animals, that these are the distinguish- 
ing features of human beings, it comes in the end 
to be an argument for the evolutionary theory rather 
than the argument against it which it is intended to 
be. I do not believe that the moral life of man shows 
any qualitative distinction between him and ani- 
mals, but if it did it would not militate against the 
evolutionary theory. 

Among those who are considering the philosophical 
aspects of evolution, considerable emphasis is being 
laid upon the conception of isomerism. According 
to this theory, out of electrons, which are quantita- 
tively and qualitatively alike, atoms are formed 
which are qualitatively different, on account of the 
different arrangement and grouping of the electrons 
in space. Similarly, out of atoms which are alike in 
quantity and quality, substances are formed which 
are different in quality. Thus the process ascends 
through the inorganic, the organic, the mental, and 
the moral realms. The process creates new values out 
of like elements all the way along by the ever increas- 
ing complexity of the combinations. Here, again, 
qualitative mental differences are dissolved when we 


43 


MIND: ITS ORIGIN AND GOAL 


seek the elements out of which they are formed, and 
differences are found to be due to a variation in ar- 
rangement and combination. This is but another way 
of presenting the dissimilarity between man’s men- 
tality and that of the lower animals, but it brings us 
to the same conclusion of elemental similarity. 


44 


CHAPTER III 


IS MENTAL DEVELOPMENT LIKE THAT OF 
BIOLOGY AND HISTORY? 


A. Brain and mind. 


HATEVER our theories may be concerning 

the relationship, there is evidently a close con- 
nection between the mind and the body. Up to a few 
years ago it would have been dogmatically affirmed 
that we know of no mental action except as it is 
manifested through speech or some other bodily 
movement or experience. Now, however, there seems 
to be a growing belief that telepathy, the transference 
of thought without the use of the ordinary means of 
expression, is being established; and, although we 
are as yet ignorant to a large extent of its laws, the 
fact of telepathy is now more widely accepted on ac- 
count of an increasing amount of evidence. Except 
for the facts of self-consciousness, and our hardly yet 
established knowledge of telepathy, we have to 
gather our ideas of the working of the mind from the 
related experiences of other persons, or from their 
behavior. It is necessary for us to correlate all of the 
facts gathered from all sources in order to obtain an 
accurate and scientific description of mental action. 
There should be some delimitations of the word 
“mind.” Some persons restrict the term to include 


45 


MIND: ITS ORIGIN AND GOAL 


only the activity of self-consciousness, and limit it to 
the experiences of human beings. Others make it so 
broad as to comprehend all mental and nervous reac- 
tions, from the loftiest ideals of the most highly de- 
veloped man to the simplest reactions or trophisms 
of the lowest forms of life. The difficulty is found in 
trying to discover some method of demarcation by 
which a line can be drawn, above which we can say 
“this is definitely mind,” and below which we can 
clearly designate nervous reactions. The higher men- 
tal processes are clearly made up of factors among 
which are simple nervous reactions, and one phase 
shades into the other so closely as to make many 
stages of development inseparable. Especially if we 
hold to the theory of the evolution of mind, it be- 
comes increasingly difficult to make sharp divisions, 
or to say where the highest mental functions begin 
and the lower ones end. 

Notwithstanding this and similar problems, it 
should not be difficult for us to differentiate between 
body and mind; but as soon as we do we are faced 
by the age-long discussion of the relation between the 
two. Some biologists and physiologists find no diffi- 
culty, for they use the term “mind” and “brain” in- 
terchangeably, the former evidently being to them 
but the product of the latter, analogous to the action 
of other bodily organs. Some recent writers on evolu- 
tion apparently take this position. Similarly, but at 


46 


BIOLOGICAL AND HISTORICAL PARALLELS 


the other extreme, there are certain philosophers who 
do not recognize any such entity as brain, except as 
a product of mind, and as a manifestation of mental 
action. The great mass of people, both scholars and 
laymen, take the moderate position of recognizing 
both mind and brain, and of believing some sort of 
relationship exists between the two, making them 
more or less interdependent, and capable of recipro- 
cal action. Such a position seems to be not only the 
common sense one, but that one which is most in 
accord with scientific investigations and conclusions. 

It is the reciprocal action which is of most interest 
to us in our present discussion, and there are certain 
parallelisms between the development of the brain 
and that of the mind which are enlightening. I am 
using the term “parallelism” in this chapter in its 
general sense, and de not wish it even to suggest the 
doctrine of ‘“‘psycho-physical parallelism.” As already 
noted, those who have worked on the subject of 
bodily evolution have progressed further than those 
who have dealt with the mental side of the question; 
and, if there are indeed parallelisms in the develop- 
ment, we may expect to benefit from the results of 
their investigations, and to make fullest use of the 
help received from this source. For example, we have 
a certain parallelism between the size of the brain and 
intelligence. This is, to be sure, a rough form of com- 
parison, and one which would naturally be made in 


47 


MIND: ITS ORIGIN AND GOAL 


the early stages of the investigation, before finer dif- 
ferences could be noted. 

Let us look at the comparative size of brains. Man 
has a larger brain than any animal except the ele- 
phant and the whale, but when the size and weight of 
the brain are compared with the size and weight of 
the body, man’s brain is several times that of the 
lower mammals. There are startling differences be- 
tween men of the same race, and as great differences 
between the average brain size and weight of different 
races; but even the lowest races are far superior in 
this respect to the highest apes—the size and weight 
being at least one hundred per cent greater. In fact, 
this enlarged brain seems to be the chief anatomical 
difference between man and the anthropoid apes. 
Elliott Smith says, “Man at first so far as his general 
appearance and build are concerned, was merely an 
Ape with an overgrown brain.” It is largely by the 
brain capacity of the fossil skulls that anthropolo- 
gists have been able to differentiate them as belong- 
ing to men or apes, and to classify the specimens al- 
ready discovered as belonging to the present species 
or as intermediate species between men and apes. 

Some anthropologists have laid considerable em- 
phasis upon the fact that when man assumed an 
erect posture it relieved him of the heavy muscles of 
the jaws and neck. Up to this time he had to do most 
of his work with his teeth, but the freedom accorded 


48 


BIOLOGICAL AND HISTORICAL PARALLELS 


to his hands relieved him of this necessity. Far lighter 
muscles are required to hold the head erect than to 
hold it bent forward. The chief interest in these facts 
to us is that these heavy muscles prevented the 
skull from expanding except in one direction. As a 
result, the sutures in the upper part of the skull of 
anthropoid apes close early, while in man they do not 
close until he is about forty years of age. In thus 
admitting of the expansion of the skull an enlarged 
brain was a possibility if not a probability. 

Perhaps one should not lay so much emphasis 
upon the size of the brain as a whole (for the largest 
human brain of which we have any knowledge is that 
of an idiot) but upon some parts of the brain the pres- 
ence of which more especially parallels the possession 
of higher mental qualities. Leaving aside the lower 
forms and taking a comparison of the brains of verte- 
brates, one finds not only an increase in the size of 
the brain as an advance is made from fishes through 
reptiles, birds, lower mammals, and apes to man; 
but more especially a development in the size of the 
cerebrum and even more of the frontal lobes, con- 
nected in no uncertain way with the distinctly human 
mental characteristics. The advance is shown, not so — 
much by a changed form as by an addition to the 
lower forms, until the forebrain, instead of being 
about a quarter of the whole brain, as it is in fishes, 
becomes nine-tenths of the whole in man. 


49 


MIND: ITS ORIGIN AND GOAL 


This same factor, the size of the forebrain, or in 
fossil skulls what amounts to the same thing, the 
space in these skulls occupied by the forebrain, is 
the determining factor in the classification of pre- 
historic man. On this basis, not the size of the brain 
_ Itself, but of the frontal lobes, the race of men called 
Pithecanthropus erectus, the remains of which were 
found in Java in 1891 and 1892, is considered the 
lowest of prehistoric human beings yet discovered; 
and Homo Neanderthalensis, specimens of which 
were discovered in different places in 1828 and sub- 
sequently, the highest; but both are of distinctly 
lower type than the present species. On the same 
basis of comparison, the Cr6-Magnon man, the first 
specimen of whom was found in and named after the 
town of Cr6-Magnon, France, in 1868, is classified 
as the first representative of the present species, 
Homo sapiens. Even if the Javan relic is considered 
the lowest form of human being, the brain capacity 
of this skull was about 950 c.c., which brings it within 
the range of variation of the present human species; 
while the largest recorded brain capacity of a gorilla, 
whose body would weigh twice as much as that of a 
human being, is 650 c.c. No one would claim that 
this increased development of the brain or of any of 
its parts was the only cause of mental development in 
the vertebrates, yet it seems to be, without doubt, 
the principal one. 


50 


BIOLOGICAL AND HISTORICAL PARALLELS 


Did time and space permit we could trace the size 
of the brain from the time of its first appearance, 
through animals lower than vertebrates, to show that 
what has been said of vertebrates is equally true of 
them; but we are especially concerned with the evo- 
lution of human intelligence. Nevertheless, the same 
fact is noticed; namely, that in a general way the de- 
velopment of a varied mental capacity parallels the 
comparative size of the brain. The argument for evo- 
lution from embryology is as valid when applied to 
the brain as to the other portions of the body. In the 
human embryo the brain develops very much along 
the line of the animal world as a whole, the cerebrum 
and especially the enlarged frontal lobes being the 
last to make their appearance, while a primitive brain 
corresponding to that of lower forms of animal life 
appears early. 

The parallelism between intelligence and an en- 
larged brain is instructive when viewed from the 
standpoint of the evolution of intelligence, but the 
development of certain brain areas which minister 
to certain mental functions makes the argument more 
detailed. The parallelism shows itself in the fact that 
the particular brain areas are developed in chrono- 
logical order paralleling the appearance of the mental 
functions which are naturally supposed to have de- 
veloped. For example, we find the area of the brain 
concerned with speech, which is comparatively small 


51 


MIND: ITS ORIGIN AND GOAL 


or absent in the higher apes, developing suddenly in 
the lower men. Smith says, “The endocranial cast of 
Pithecanthropus [the Javan skull supposed to be that 
of the lowest human being known] reveals a localized 
and precocious expansion of those areas of the brain 
which we associate with the power of articulate 
speech.” 

It is not unlikely that the power of articulate 
speech was one of the chief factors in the rise of man 
to his human status. In connection with this there 
are two things to be noted: first, that the power of 
speech depends not upon the vocal organs, which 
were well developed in the apes, but upon the brain 
and mind adjustments and progress; and second, that 
the development of the centers of motor speech in 
the brain was not sufficient in itself, but certain co- 
ordinate and related centers had to be developed 
before the motor speech centers could function. 

There are some anthropologists who consider that 
the ancestor of man was not so highly specialized as 
his cousins, that the development in his case was 
more general, and that as a result he was not side- 
tracked. The first impetus toward superiority came 
when he adopted an arboreal life, which required 
and forced agility, and transferred emphasis from 
the sense of smell to that of sight and hearing; and 
that the combination of the enlarged use of these 
functions was responsible for the development of 


52 


BIOLOGICAL AND HISTORICAL PARALLELS 


attention and higher association which were neces- 
sary for the use of speech. 

Perhaps it was not the arboreal life in itself which 
was valuable, so much as the life to which the ar- 
boreal was an introduction. After an education in 
the higher branches, the race was forced to descend 
from the trees, on account of the destruction of the 
forests by climatic conditions. Forest animals are © 
notoriously deficient in sight and hearing; but the 
life in the open spaces, forcing upon our ancestors the 
erect position in order to obtain greater speed, gave 
the race better defensive powers, due to the freedom 
to carry weapons already made and the ability to 
use them effectively, and conferred upon the indi- 
vidual with superior sight and hearing an advantage 
which would naturally show itself in the struggle for 
existence. The erect position forced his nose off the 
ground, where smell had been more effective, and 
enabled him to see over the bushes which grew on the 
deforested plains. He could see his prey and his © 
enemies before they could smell him. This was for- 
tunate for the preservation of the species, for the ~ 
very fact of his being on the ground instead of in 
the trees added greatly to his own danger and the 
danger of his offspring. All his superior mental ability 
was called into action to accomplish the feats which 
would be required of him, and considerable advance- 
ment must have been made about this time in his 


Sys. 


MIND: ITS ORIGIN AND GOAL 


mental equipment concerned with an increased brain 
capacity, to have enabled him to meet the demands 
made upon him. Going up into or coming down from 
the trees was not sufficient explanation without an 
internal change of considerable amount. 

The portion of the brain most frequently referred 
to as the basis of higher mental qualities, the one 
which finds its greatest development in man, is known 
as the association area. The growth of a part of the 
brain receiving impressions from different sources 
and so correlated that one impression potentially re- 
vived another was needed for higher mental action. 
In the cerebral center there are portions largely made 
up of fibers, called the association area; but it is 
named chiefly in analogy to the mental experience of 
association of experiences. Physiologists sometimes 
speak as though we knew all about the anatomical 
structure of the association area, and that the psy- 
chological conception of association of experiences 
was derived from it; but the opposite is more nearly 
the case. Yet we must all admit that association of 
experiences with corresponding comparison and 
judgment is necessary before higher mental func- 
tions are noted. So far as we know, the physical basis 
of association is in the cerebral cortex, and the ex- 
pansion of the cortex naturally ministers to the de- 
velopment of association. 

The third form of parallelism toward which atten- 


54 


BIOLOGICAL AND HISTORICAL PARALLELS 


tion may be drawn in showing how mental develop- 
ment might have been aided is that well-known one 
between the increasing complexity of the nervous sys- 
tem and the growth of intelligence. Starting with the 
simplest form of nervous system found in microor- 
ganisms, one could readily select types and arrange 
them in a gradually ascending scale until one reached 
the complicated system of man. In doing so, it would 
be found in general that the degree of intelligence 
which the animal possessed corresponded very closely 
with the complexity of the nervous system. 

Not knowing definitely the relation between brain 
and mind, it is impossible for us to form a definite 
argument on this relationship, but at least the facts 
are very suggestive. If we find that intelligence de- 
velops with the weight and size of the brain, with 
the development of certain parts of the brain, and 
with the complexity of the nervous system (and we 
can find graduated scales of each with man closely 
related but superior in each particular) it does sug- 
gest the development of the brain and the parallel 
development of the mind of man from some lower 


type. 
B. Recapitulation. 


The evidences of recapitulation have been destined 
to be one of the chief props of the evolutionary 
theory. It is a parallelism, but a parallelism so ar- 


55 


MIND: ITS ORIGIN AND GOAL 


resting and so closely applied that it is difficult to find 
any other explanation of it than that of evolution. 
While the actual evidence is naturally only available 
to biologists and embryologists, their accounts are 
most interesting and convincing. 

The facts which form the parallelism are these: 
In the nine months of prenatal life, each human in- 
dividual passes through various stages, so that at ap- 
propriate times the embryo is very like the embryo 
of the various species through which he is supposed 
to have evolved. Early there is the simple division 
of cells like that of the lowest forms of animal life, 
then through various invertebrate states. Following 
this, it becomes like the embryo of vertebrates in 
their various developments, the fish, reptile, birds, 
and mammals; and finally the embryo becomes char- 
acteristically human. Thousands of years of animal 
history must be passed through in as many minutes 
or seconds, but the main divisions of animal life are 
recognizable at different stages. The course of evolu- 
tion is as plainly traced in this way, as it is through 
the different layers of rocks by the geologists. 

At the time of birth, however, the fully developed 
human being does not appear; but years of develop- 
ment after birth are required to furnish man in his 
final stage. There is a definite relationship between 
the length of the period of infancy and the height of 
development. The lower forms of animal life at birth, 

56 


BIOLOGICAL AND HISTORICAL PARALLELS 


or at the end of incubation, are perfectly able to care 
for themselves; while the helplessness of the human 
infant is proverbial, and it requires one or probably 
two decades for the fully developed human being to 
mature. The question naturally arises whether or 
not the period from birth to manhood does not also 
follow a line of development, and the theory finally 
has been formulated that, while the prenatal life re- 
capitulates the history of the race up to the time that 
human beings appeared, the development from birth 
to adolescence follows the course of human history 
to the present time. 

When this theory was propounded and developed 
two reactions naturally took place, one unfavorable 
and the other favorable. There were many who ob- 
jected to it, not only on account of its being a general 
part of the theory of evolution, but some evolution- 
ists thought of it as not according with the facts, or 
at least as not sufficiently close to the facts to war- 
rant the theory. The chief objection to the theory is 
that while in many respects the order of development 
of the child and the race accord, there are some se- 
rious discords. For example, the sexual instinct, 
which must from necessity have appeared early in 
the history of animal life, is one of the latest to ap- 
pear in the history of the human individual. There 
are similar discrepancies in physiological recapitula- 
tion, but study has shown reasons for the change. 


57 


MIND: ITS ORIGIN AND GOAL 


Further study will undoubtedly show corresponding 
reasons for the psychological changes. 

Concerning this objection there are two things to 
be said: first, the contention is that the time from 
birth to adolescence does not recapitulate the history 
of animal development from the beginning, but only 
that of the human race; and we know that in pre- 
human animals, especially the higher mammals, the 
sexual instinct develops late. It is to be noted, also, 
that a multitude of lower forms of life are devoid of 
sex; reproduction was necessarily from the begin- 
ning, but sex did not appear until later. Freud insists 
that sex appears very early as a psychological phe- 
nomenon, but the lateness is in its physiological ma- 
turity. If this is true, the discrepancy can be leit to 
the physiologists to explain. In the second place, it 
has never been contended that this evolution of the 
human race, or any other form of evolution for that 
matter, took place without modifications from vari- 
ous directions. We recognize, in fact, that these modi- 
fications are the chief contributing cause to evolution. 
In any case, for the sexual instinct to develop and 
function before the animal was ready to care properly 
for the offspring would cause the extinction of that 
species; so that natural selection would provide for 
the delay of the maturity of sex until the appropriate 
time, which in man would be late. The statement of 
the theory should include these exceptions, and 

58 


BIOLOGICAL AND HISTORICAL PARALLELS 


should read that the development of the individual 
human being recapitulates the development of the 
race, except in so far as modifications have taken 
place according to the demands for perpetuating or 
improving the race. The most that can be said for the 
theory is that 77 general the development of the race 
and of the individual coincides, but only that much 
can be definitely affirmed. The chief interest in this 
theory for us in our present study is that this branch 
of evolution follows the psychological rather than 
the physical development of man. 

Among the first to approve of this theory and to 
make a practical application of it were the educa- 
tionalists, and it was not long before they formulated 
certain “cultural epochs” which typified certain 
stages of development in the race. For example, there 
were the hunting stage, the collecting stage, and vari- 
ous other stages through which the race had suc- 
cessively passed; and upon this there was built up 
an educational theory that the individual must be 
allowed to participate in the activities of a certain 
stage in which his ancestors indulged, in order to be 
well fitted to enter the following stage and carry on 
its activities. When these stages were appropriately 
passed through, he would be in a better position to 
take up the final stage of mental development and 
education which civilization imposes upon the mod- 
ern man. How strictly such a regimen should be fol- 


59 


MIND: ITS ORIGIN AND GOAL 


lowed, if the theory is true, is doubtful; but there 
seems to be some substantiation for the general idea 
from the proverbial success of men whose early years 
have been spent in physical activity, which the farm 
life of fifty years ago demanded of the children of the 
family. 

Up to the present time the effort has been made to 
prove that the history of the race is recapitulated in 
the individual. If this is established in a general way, 
can we not turn the investigation around and show 
that the individual recapitulates the history of the 
race? We could then have additional proof of the 
evolution theory, especially that of mental evolution, 
and obtain information concerning the course along 
which the race has developed. We have these various 
steps, not as valuable factors in modern life, but as 
vestigial factors in the mental life, showing the way 
in which man has travelled, and on account of na- 
ture’s conservatism still being retained. There have 
been nearly two hundred vestigial and regressive 
bodily organs traced to man;—may there not be far 
more mental factors of the same nature, of which 
these stages of recapitulation in the development of 
the child are impressive ones? 

We find that the objectors to the evolutionary the- 
ory take the same ground when dealing with mental 
as with bodily development. That man develops in- 
dividually from a single cell cannot be controverted— 

60 


BIOLOGICAL AND HISTORICAL PARALLELS 


and is generally admitted. There is, however, a very 
decided but inconsistent objection to admitting that 
the race developed in the same way. That man de- 
velops from very, very low intelligence at birth to a 
high mental plane at maturity is as generally ac- 
cepted; but there is objection to the theory that the 
race has developed in the same way. There seems to 
be as little valid objection to the theory of the de- 
velopment of the race as to that of the individual, or 
to mental as to physical development. 


61 


CHAPTER IV 


WHAT DO INSTINCTS TELL US ABOUT 
THE PAST? 


E look to the instincts for our most direct evi- 

dence of human mental evolution, for through 
and in them we see our closest connection with the 
mental life of animals, and in them we see survivals 
of animal traits, some of which are no longer valuable 
to us and others of which may even be a disadvan- 
tage. These are mental vermiform appendices. The 
emotion of fear which accompanies the instinct of 
flight is seen in connection with certain experiences. 
There is an instinctive fear of loud noises. Many peo- 
ple are afraid of thunder, notwithstanding the fact 
that they know it is the lightning which causes the 
damage, and that when the thunder is heard the dan- 
ger is over. One is at a disadvantage who is afraid of 
thunder, but it is difficult for many to overcome the 
fear, and impossible for some. There is also instinc- 
tive fear at the loss of bodily support. The emotion of 
anger appears instinctively, when bodily movements 
are restrained or restricted. The instinct of flight, 
with accompanying fear, is experienced when a dog 
barks at our heels. It is futile to run; for the dog can 
run faster, and our running would probably encour- 
age him to pursue and perhaps to bite us; but we in- 

62 


THE MESSAGE OF THE INSTINCTS 


stinctively start to run under such circumstances. 
These and other examples show the mental vestigial 
traits which we cannot yet abandon and for which 
we are indebted to our prehuman ancestors. Some of 
them have long ago outgrown their usefulness, but 
nature’s conservatism passes them on to us. 

There has long been controversy and discussion 
concerning the relation between reason and instinct. 
Years ago it was affirmed that men were ruled by 
reason and animals by instinct, but this affirmation 
has long since been silenced; for we know that even 
those animals which seem most guided by instinct 
are not devoid of reason. It is true that some animals, 
as, for example, the insects, seem to be impelled and 
directed entirely by instinct. Notwithstanding this, 
when prevented from accomplishing the result which 
instinct impels, by means of the methods which in- 
stinct usually employs, they have been found to 
show apparently rudimentary intellectual ability, 
sometimes of a high order, in a degree usually at- 
tributed to human beings only. For instance, we have 
a well-attested example of a wasp picking up a pebble 
in her mandibles and using it to pound down the loose 
dirt placed in a hole. She brought more loose dirt, 
and again seized the stone and used it as before. Man 
is sometimes called “a tool-using” animal, but he 
must share this distinction with lower forms of life. 

On the other hand, we are equally certain that man 

63 


MIND: ITS ORIGIN AND GOAL 


is not guided by intelligence entirely, and some would 
say not principally. The instinctive life of man has 
received considerable recent attention, and this study 
has resulted in much profitable knowledge. It is evi- 
dent that we are far from the end of such an investi- 
gation, but enough has been done to show the large 
part which the instincts play in human mental life. 
Little, if any, of our impelling mental force is com- 
pulsory power of the intelligence; it is furnished by 
the instincts. Intelligence, however, adds much to 
our ability to accomplish the feats which the instincts 
demand. While instincts were formerly considered 
lower than intelligence and not worthy of an intelli- 
gent, moral, and religious being such as man, we now 
know that every characteristic act of the most exalted 
saint as well as of the lowliest sinner has its genesis 
in the instincts. In fact, we have come to the place 
where we recognize that if man is to be understood 
we must examine his ancestral traits. The fact that 
he is controlled by both instincts and intelligence is 
one of the reasons why he is man. 

Elliott Smith calls attention to the value of an even 
or gradual development which does not sacrifice the 
possibilities of future achievement by narrow spe- 
cialization. For this reason it is not unlikely that the 
ancestors of man played a much more humble réle 
than some of their cousins who attained immediate 
success on account of early specialization. The result 


64 


THE MESSAGE OF THE INSTINCTS 


of this early specialization was the sacrifice of primi- 
tive simplicity and plasticity of structure, which 
tended to prevent adaptability to new conditions. Our 
simian cousins undoubtedly attained an immediate 
advantage by specializing in hands. The development 
of the hand, where one digit (the thumb) is opposed 
to the others, giving a grasping power unknown be- 
fore, was one of the greatest advances ever made in 
nature. Monkeys and apes developed four of them, 
one on each limb. By this means they would naturally 
have an advantage over man’s ancestors, especially 
in an arboreal life. 

Prehuman stock, in escaping this specialization, 
sacrificed immediate advantage for future gain; and, 
being content with two hands, developed eventually 
two feet: being the only animal which has the inside 
digit on any limb the longest, and consequently being 
the only one which can walk erectly with comfort and 
efficiency. Similarly, the time was when insects spe- 
cialized in instincts. We can understand what an ini- 
tial advantage this would be; but man’s remote an- 
cestor, developing more evenly, if less brilliantly, did 
not specialize so much in instincts, and consequently 
had to call more frequently on his intelligence. 
Through the necessary use of intellectual factors, the 
development came which made him depend less on 
instinctive behavior for means of satisfying the im- 

65 


MIND: ITS ORIGIN AND GOAL 


pulses, and consequently to become primarily the in- 
tellectual animal. 

Instincts are so well adapted to the purposes they 
serve, that it is difficult to conceive of their being the 
result of a “trial and error” method of development, 
or of chance development. It almost appears as if 
they could be the result of only the highest intelli- 
gence, coupled at times with omniscience. The ex- 
planation which comes first to us is that intelligence 
must have had something to do with planning the acts 
which later became instinctive, and some theories of 
instinct have been formed to conform to this idea. 
The theory of Lamarck, that instinct is inherited 
habit, if it did not conflict with the difficulty of postu- 
lating the possibility of inheriting acquired character- 
istics, would assume the presence of intelligence in 
the formation of habits. Lewes goes further and de- 
fines instinct as “lapsed intelligence.” 

There are two difficulties attending any theories 
of this kind. The first is that so far as we know, both 
in the individual and in the race, instinct precedes 
intelligence—at least, so far as any apparent develop- 
ment is concerned. The second difficulty, especially 
in Lewes’s theory of lapsed intelligence, is that if this 
theory were correct, we should expect to find intelli- 
gence highest and instinct correspondingly absent in 
the lower animals, and the higher animals to have 
most perfect instincts with intelligence factors less 

66 


THE MESSAGE OF THE INSTINCTS 


prominent. The exact reverse is the case. Biology and 
psychology have never pointed out a single case 
where intelligence has lapsed into instinct, but there 
are many cases where the urge of instinct seems to 
have been instrumental in the development of intelli- 
gence. 

We must be careful, however, not to fall into an 
alternate error, and think of intelligence as being 
entirely absent until instinct had become perfect, and 
then growing out of the latter as the perfect fruit of 
a productive plant. It seems rather that intelligence 
developed early, if then imperfectly; and that it was 
concomitant with instinct in its development, but 
slower in attaining perfection. Instinct did undoubt- 
edly develop first, but that does not mean that in- 
telligence was entirely absent until instinct was com- 
plete. 

There are some instinctive acts performed by 
wasps and moths which betray such wonderful fore- 
sight that it seems absolutely impossible, at first, 
to explain them without intelligence of the highest 
order. Some seem to be so far-sighted that even in- 
telligence does not appear equal to the task of ini- 
tiating them. Take the case of the Yucca moth. The 
flower in which the eggs are deposited opens for but 
a single night. The moth emerges from her chrysalid 
case just as the flower opens. From the anther of one 
of these flowers the moth collects the golden pollen, 

67 


MIND: ITS ORIGIN AND GOAL 


and deposits it with her eggs among the ovules of the 
pistil of another flower. The fertilization and conse- 
quent development of the flower are necessary for 
the sake of her offspring. “These marvellously adap- 
tive instinctive activities of the Yucca moth are per- 
formed but once in her life, and that without instruc- 
tion, with no opportunities of learning by imitation, 
and, apparently, without prevision of what will be 
the outcome of her behavior; for she has no experi- 
ence of the subsequent fate of the eggs she lays, and 
cannot be credited with any knowledge of the effect 
of the pollen upon the ovules.” Could highest intelli- 
gence adapt means to ends any better? 

While it is unlikely that intelligence had any ex- 
tensive role in the forming of those acts which sub- 
sequently become instinctive, it evidently has had 
more part in determining which instinctive acts 
should survive. Though acquired characteristics may 
not be transmissible, we know that unused organs 
and activities are eventually lost. Not only do dif- 
ferent instincts vary in impulse and perfection of 
execution in the same individual, but the same in- 
stinct varies in these respects in different individuals. 
In general, however, the instincts and intelligence of 
the individuals of any one species are so much alike 
that they are used together in much the same way, 
and only those instincts are perpetuated in any 
species which the intelligence uses. Intelligence 

68 


THE MESSAGE OF THE INSTINCTS 


makes the instinctive acts of the individual more 
worth while; the higher the intelligence of an animal 
the more varieties of use an instinctive impulse may 
have, and the greater the use for the good of the in- 
dividual. This selective use of instincts by intelligence 
serves us in the way of direction, and becomes one 
factor in mental evolution. It is to be noted, however, 
that there is probably no place where natural selec- 
tion has so nearly the appearance of inherited habit 
as in the realm of instinct. In their completed forms, 
habits and instinct are so much alike in operation 
that if we did not know their history it would be diffi- 
cult to differentiate them. Both use reflex action and 
combine a number of reflexes in their processes, but 
it is the adaptive combination in each case which is 
the distinctive part. The emotion which invariably 
accompanies the instinct is less definite and intense, 
if it is at all present in habit. 

Tracing the different theories of the genesis of in- 
stinct, we find Spencer deriving instinct from reflex 
action and the inheritance of reflex associations which 
have been acquired. In his time the transmission of 
acquired characteristics was not discredited as it is 
today. Wundt followed Lamarck and attributed in- 
stinct to inherited habit. Eimer also followed La- 
marck, and did not hesitate to presume that the 
habits which later became instincts were the result 
of intelligence of a high order. Romanes regarded 


69 


MIND: ITS ORIGIN AND GOAL 


natural selection and inherited use as the most im- 
portant factors, but the examples which he gives to 
prove the latter seem to be of doubtful value. 

If we are debarred from using the theory of the 
transmission of acquired characteristics in our ex- 
planation of evolution, as we apparently are in the 
present development of science, we are forced to fall 
back principally upon the theory of the natural selec- 
tion of variations or mutations. Some other factors 
evidently enter in, such as intellectual selection, just 
referred to; but these subsidiary factors are only 
aids to, or variations of, natural selection. Instinct, 
which at one time promised to swing us away from 
natural selection, is now also constrained, as much 
as any factor, to fall back upon it for explanation. 

If the structure of the body as a whole, or of any 
portion of the body, can be brought about through 
natural selection and passed on by heredity, it seems 
very natural that the functions and use of the body 
or organ should be developed and transmitted in the 
same way, for there is a very definite correlation be- 
tween the two. Wings and flying, egg-laying and nest- 
building, bills and food-getting are in each case 
Closely related and have evidently had a reciprocal 
action. They are complementary, and the particular 
form of one in any species may be explained by the 
particular form of its complement. Not until we have 
progressed much further in the investigation of in- 


70 


THE MESSAGE OF THE INSTINCTS 


stincts, and see the relation of these complementary 
factors through the nervous system, can we fully 
describe, to say nothing of explain, this relationship. 
There seems to be, however, no reason why we can- 
not recognize it. 

Our ideas concerning instinct have changed con- 
siderably with the extension of investigations of it. 
This change may be indicated by noting that Hob- 
house says there is “abundant evidence showing that 
instinct is not always perfect in its working; that it 
does not proceed on an unchangeable model; that 
it is on occasion applied mistakenly, uselessly and in- 
juriously; that it is often incomplete at birth, and 
requires development; and that at any rate, among 
the higher animals, it is so interwoven with intelli- 
gence that the two factors become exceedingly diff- 
cult to disentangle.”’ These statements, which modern 
investigators seem to confirm, make of instinct a very 
different factor from what it was supposed to be prior 
to fifty years ago. 

The amount of painstaking and minute investiga- 
tion which has been made during this time has been 
prodigious, and gives data from which to draw gen- 
eral laws and to form theories, and yet much detailed 
investigation remains to be made. Coupled with this 
minute and patient observation on the part of scien- 
tists there has also been an immense amount of writ- 
ing on the subject, biologists and psychologists vying 

71 


MIND: ITS ORIGIN AND GOAL 


with each other in this respect. Hardly a book on 
either subject has been written (and there have been 
many) without some reference to this fertile field of 
investigation and speculation. It is, therefore, very 
difficult to sum up in any adequate way the results 
of all this work, but perhaps we could do no better 
than to follow one writer, who, while using as a basis 
the results of recent investigations, has emphasized 
one factor and differentiated the main elements. 

McDougall has defined instinct as “an inherited 
and innate psycho-physical disposition which deter- 
mines its possessor to perceive, and to pay attention 
to, objects of a certain class, to experience an emo- 
tional excitement of a particular quality upon per- 
ceiving such an object, and to act in regard to it in 
a particular manner, or, at least, to experience an im- 
pulse to such action.” In this definition the author 
has not only laid emphasis upon the action, or the im- 
pulse to action, which is usually the core of all defi- 
nitions of instinct and the part of the instinct usually 
described; but he notes the knowledge which the in- 
stinct entails, and, especially, the emotion which is 
the unfailing accompaniment of, or part of, every 
instinct. Habitual acts may be performed uncon- 
sciously, and be absolutely neutral as far as feeling 
is concerned, but instinctive acts are never thus, al- 
though some former writers used to speak of human 
instincts as being unconscious. 


72 


THE MESSAGE OF THE INSTINCTS 


The receptive and motor parts of an instinct may 
be greatly modified by training, by the application of 
intellectual factors to experience, and by other 
means; but the emotional factor persists through all 
these experiences practically unchanged. It is this 
discovery, and the differentiation and distinction of 
the emotional element which have been McDougall’s 
most noteworthy additions to the subject. He has 
given us a statement of the emotion which forms a 
part of or accompanies each instinct, and instead of 
naming the instinct indiscriminately after the action 
or the emotion, has started the custom of naming the 
instinct invariably according to the resultant action, 
which ought to aid somewhat in clarifying the situa- 
tion. For example, instead of speaking of the instinct 
of fear, he designates the instinct as “flight” or 
“escape,” recognizing fear as the accompanying emo- 
tion. 

It might be thought that with the general under- 
standing among educated persons concerning the na- 
ture of instinct, and especially the agreement among 
scientists, it would be a comparatively easy task to 
agree upon a list of instincts. This is far from the 
case, for not only does every writer have a different 
list, but a single writer will vary his list at different 
times. McDougall’s first list, with the accompanying 
emotions, was as follows: 


73 


MIND: ITS ORIGIN AND GOAL 


Flight—Fear 

Repulsion—Disgust 

Curiosity—W onder 
Pugnacity—Anger 
Self-abasement—Negative self-feeling 
Self-assertion—Positive self-feeling 
Parental—Tender emotion 


To these seven he added five others with less well-de- 
fined emotional tendencies, namely, Reproduction, 
Food-getting, Gregariousness, Acquisition, and Con- 
struction. He recognized also minor instincts such as 
crawling and walking, and pseudo-instincts—sugges- 
tion, imitation, and sympathy. 

A subsequent list of the same author contains four- 
teen instincts, as follows: Parental, Combat, Curi- 
osity, Food-seeking, Repulsion, Escape, Gregarious- 
ness, Passive Sympathy, Self-assertion, Submission, 
Mating, Acquisition, Construction, Appeal. It should 
be noted that the latter list contains all of the first 
two classes of the former list, although some of them 
under different names. These lists have been quoted, 
not only to give some idea of the latest conception 
concerning the content and extent of instinctive hu- 
man action, but more especially to show how difficult 
it is for one person to decide upon what should be in- 
cluded under the classification of instincts, and thus 


74 


THE MESSAGE OF THE INSTINCTS 


to indicate the differences of opinion among the many 
scientists working on this subject. 

Taking the latter list as the result of the more ma- 
ture thought of the author, we see that there is not one 
of these human instincts which man does not share 
with the lower animals. Examining them one by one, 
there immediately come to mind numerous examples 
of each instinct in the complete range of the animal 
kingdom; and in the cruder, more primitive ex- 
pression of them we find a very close kinship. This is 
undoubtedly where man shows his relationship to 
his humbler cousins most clearly, and the strength 
of impulse is no less apparent in one than in the other. 
Those who classify all instincts under the three heads 
of self-preservation, nutrition, and reproduction find 
the relationship equally true; and those who, on the 
other hand, multiply the number many fold are just 
as conscious of the connection. As bone for bone we 
resemble other vertebrates, and organ for organ far 
older genera, so instinct for instinct we parallel them. 

If, however, the similarity of instincts shows our 
relationship to the lower animals, the total expres- 
sion, due to the higher development of some of them 
and the modification caused by intelligent adaptation, 
as clearly shows our differentiation from them. It is 
true that unless one knows the history of the de- 
velopment of some of the instincts, one would 
scarcely recognize some of the expressions as belong- 


ips. 


MIND: ITS ORIGIN AND GOAL 


ing to the instinct. For example, the choice of a 
necktie by an adolescent young man seems to have 
little relationship to the sexual instinct, or the praise- 
worthy, altruistic choices of modern philanthropy 
to the parental instinct, but both can easily be traced 
back not to trained judgment but to the respective 
instincts. The instinctive impulses betray the fact 
that we are animal, the form of their expression re- 
veals that we are human. 


76 


CHAPTER V 


HAS HUMAN INTELLIGENCE SUPERSEDED 
INSTINCT? 


E have already noted that as far as develop- 

ment is concerned instinct was prior to intelli- 
gence, ripening first, and showing its capacity to 
adapt the organism to the needs of the environment 
while intelligence had made little progress; that the 
function of intelligence is to fulfil in a more adequate, 
way the instinctive impulses, intelligence thus be- 
coming the servant of instinct; and that we always 
find instinct and intelligence in intimate codperation, 
and usually so intertwined as to make it most diffi- 
cult to resolve them into their separate elements. 
With this as a basis, we may proceed to the develop- 
ment of these points and to a further examination of 
the relation between these two mental factors. 

The fact that man has more prominent and serv- 
iceable intelligence does not mean that he has weaker 
instincts. In former days it was asserted that animals 
were controlled by instinct, but man by reason. We 
may account for this mistaken notion by the fact that 
animals respond to instinctive impulses in a direct, 
simple, and undeviating manner; while man with his 
superior intelligence is able to respond in a variety of 
ways, some of which are so indirect and complicated 


77 


MIND: ITS ORIGIN AND GOAL 


as to mislead people concerning their origin. Not 
only may the responses be indirect and complicated, 
but according to some recent investigators they may 
be symbolic as well, so that the impulse to action may 
be completely hidden, or the expression may seem to 
deny the very instinct which impelled it. The celi- 
bates of the Middle Ages proved the strong impulse 
of the sexual instinct which their mode of life seemed 
to deny. The very denial, which was deemed so nec- 
essary, was evidence of its strength; and their or- 
dinary as well as their abnormal experiences would 
reveal to anyone familiar with the modern psycho- 
logical point of view the large part the sexual instinct 
played in their lives. Sublimations of one kind or 
another were common, and the erotic expression of 
their love for celestial or divine beings was hardly 
sufficiently disguised to be called a sublimation. It 
was because man did not respond to instinctive im- 
pulses in the crass, narrow, direct way characteristic 
of animals that he was supposed to have left instinct 
behind and to have substituted intellect in its place. 
Because intellect guided the fulfilment of the im- 
pulse, it was given credit for originating the impulse, 
—the steering wheel was thought to be the engine. 
One rule which seems to apply generally is that the 
more highly specialized an instinct is the less the in- 
telligence seems to enter into it. This is reasonable, 
for if an instinct is so specialized as to deal with a 
78 


INTELLIGENCE AND INSTINCT 


detailed rather than with a general result, there would 
be fewer ways of responding, and consequently less 
opportunity for the display of intelligence. It may 
be said in a general way, that the lower in the scale 
of animal life the more specialized are the instincts. 
This may account for the rise of intelligence as life 
advanced, for with the more general impulse of in- 
stincts, the greater opportunity for the use of in- 
tellectual factors would aid in their development, 
regardless of the way in which they did develop. In 
man we see the instinctive impulse least specific; not 
weaker, however, on that account; and this may be 
an additional reason why the power of instinct in 
the human life was not so easily recognized in former 
years. 

One further reason why the power of instinctive 
life was formerly not so clearly recognized in the 
human animal was that there are very few human 
instincts which appear immediately after birth, most 
of them ripening much later. We marvel at the young 
chick, which begins to peck at small objects soon 
after it is out of the shell, out of which it has had to 
hammer its way, and recognizes the call of the mother 
hen, following her from place to place. Or if we look 
still lower in the scale of life, we find other forms 
which are as fit to battle with enemies or to procure 
_food on incubation as at any time of life, and are 
already provided with instincts which enable them 


79 


MIND: ITS ORIGIN AND GOAL 


to perform all necessary activities, and to perform 
them effectively. The gradual nature of the appear- 
ance of human instincts contrasted with the ready- 
made appearance of those of the lower animals, has 
served to make the former less striking and conse- 
quently less noticeable. 

It is while the instincts are maturing that the young 
of the human species develop skill and acquire knowl- 
edge—in other words, receive their education. While 
this is of immense advantage to the individual and 
to the race, it serves also to hide the development of 
the instincts and to assign to other means the part 
which the instincts play in human life. We give to 
schools, to teachers, and to books the credit for ini- 
tiating certain actions which in truth are the result of 
instinctive impulses, and which simply owe the de- 
tails of their execution to the educational forces. Or, 
on the other hand, we blame certain agencies for 
conduct of which we do not approve, when the real 
springs of action may be instinctive. In both cases 
we credit to the intelligence what is really the result 
of instinctive impulse. We must not in any way un- 
derestimate the value of the long infancy of the hu- 
man infant; but, on the other hand, we can recognize 
the manner in which the training may hide the true 
source of the impulses. 

In the discussion of instinct and intelligence they 
are usually opposed and contrasted, but in reality 

80 


INTELLIGENCE AND INSTINCT 


they are supplementary and complementary. They 
are different ways which nature has for accomplish- 
ing her purposes, not contradictory ways. By in- 
stinct she is assured of immediate success of a par- 
ticular, somewhat limited end by direct method; but 
she is, by this means, circumscribed and unable to 
take a long step in advance—it is a sure, but short 
step. By intelligence she takes greater risks, but if 
successful there seem to be no limits to her progress. 
It is a hazardous, though perhaps a long step. When 
instinct completes an action, it is finished and defi- 
nitely closed; it aims at a certain mark and hits it. 
The incident has no sequel which is directly related 
to it. With the intellect the case is very different. 
Every need which the intellect satisfies is the founda- 
tion for a new need, and thereby an endless chain of 
progress is begun. Every intellectual act is an ex- 
periment in adventure; one never knows where it is 
going to end. 

All this presupposes that instinct and intelligence 
are found in a pure state, and that we can note the 
effect of their unmixed action. To the contrary they 
are never so found, and we have no examples of them 
in this form. In imagination we may conceive of in- 
stinct without any intellectual factor, and try to pic- 
ture the action of such an experience; practically, 
however, we cannot know it. In the instincts con- 
nected with the lower forms of animal life we get the 

81 


MIND: ITS ORIGIN AND GOAL 


least intelligence, but even here there is possibility, 
at least, of some intellectual activity. The difficulty 
here is that there is the probability of another con- 
fusion at the opposite pole; namely, the danger of 
being unable to differentiate instinct from reflex 
action. 

The winking of the eye, when foreign matter enters 
it, is a good example of a reflex action, for it takes 
place immediately after the external stimulation, 
with or without consciousness, and over which con- 
sciousness has no control. The knee jerk, when the 
foot is involuntarily thrown up after a blow below 
the knee-cap, is another example which shows that 
only the nervous elements of the spinal cord are 
directly involved. On the other hand, instincts, in 
human beings, always involve consciousness, depend 
upon the operation of the higher or brain centers, and 
are much more complex. Instincts consist not only 
of a single movement, but of many movements, each 
one in itself perhaps useless, but when combined 
serving a valuable purpose; the nest-building of 
birds, for example. When, finally, we have methods 
used which are the result of something in addition to 
reflex or instinctive action, we must impute intelli- 
gence. 

We usually think of instinct as action based upon 
hereditary modes of response, and this is invariably 
true. We further consider that an instinct has one 

82 


INTELLIGENCE AND INSTINCT 


unfailing mode of response, and if another appears 
it is due to the work of intelligence. This, however, 
is difficult to affirm. Theoretically and ideally we can 
easily differentiate the two, but practically it is not 
so easy. Some instincts, and especially is this true of 
the higher or more complex and less specific ones, 
seem to have alternative methods of response; and 
if one, which is always first choice, is not successful, 
the other one is used. We may, perhaps, use this 
method of differentiation between alternative in- 
stinctive responses and intelligent responses; namely, 
when the second method of response is invariably 
used, we may think of that as alternative instinctive; 
but when different responses are made by different 
members of the same species, or by the same member 
at different times, after the blocking of the usual in- 
stinctive response, then the response is intelligent. 
These alternative methods of response are usually 
found in the more complex instincts, but so also are 
the intelligent factors. This makes the differentiation 
correspondingly difficult. 

As an example of the alternative method, which is 
unvarying in the species and seems to be due to he- 
redity, a quotation from Preyer may suffice. “Very 
young hermit-crabs, not long after leaving the egg, 
rush with extraordinary animation for suitable shells 
that are given to them in the water. They examine 
the opening at the mouth, and take up their quarters 

83 


MIND: ITS ORIGIN AND GOAL 


inside with remarkable alacrity. But, if it chances 
that the shells are still occupied by molluscs, then 
they stay close by the opening, and wait until the 
snail dies, which generally occurs soon after the be- 
ginning of the imprisonment and the strict watch. 
Upon this the small crab pulls out the carcass, de- 
vours it, and moves into the lodgings himself.” 
Instincts which have alternative methods of re- 
sponse are rare, and are not characteristic; for 
usually an instinct has a course of action of some 
length, fixed, and with no alternative. Intelligence, on 
the other hand, has no fixed course of action, but 
recognizing the ultimate aim, is indifferent to means, 
so long as they accomplish the desired end. In the 
lower forms of intelligence, not the whole plan or 
ultimate aim which the instinctive impulse implies, 
but only an intermediary end may be grasped, and 
means adopted to accomplish that; the more devel- 
oped the intelligence is, the more surely the ulti- 
mate end is perceived, and to accomplish this short 
cuts may be taken. Unmodified instinct, however, 
takes no short cuts, but traverses every stage with 
unfailing regularity. In human beings, the most im- 
portant part of the instinct is the impulse. Whether 
this is carried out by the instinctive or the intelligent 
method is of less moment, although the human ideal 
is to have an instinctive impulse perfected by intelli- 
gent means. That a man marries is the result of an 


84 


INTELLIGENCE AND INSTINCT 


instinct; that he marries only one woman is the result 
of intelligence. 

We have already referred to insects as furnishing 
the best example of animal life controlled by instinct, 
but even here we see many acts performed which 
have every appearance of intelligent variations, for 
these variations are not constant, and depend upon 
the circumstances of the moment. It is a general rule 
that the amount of intelligence manifested by any 
insects depends upon the complexity and perfection 
of their instincts and upon the development of the 
nervous system and the sense organs. Groups of 
primitive insects manifest very slight intelligence, 
but the Hymenoptera, whose instincts have attracted 
widespread interest and astonishment, show most in- 
telligent action. 

We have no more accurate or valuable investiga- 
tions of insects than those made by the Peckhams. 
These studies show that the homing of wasps occurs 
in the same way as that of carrier pigeons, and, in 
fact, of human beings under like circumstances. The 
wasps, before departing from the nest for the first 
time, make elaborate “locality studies,” flying around 
the nest in wider and wider circles and going higher 
and higher in the air. A human being, placed in un- 
familiar woods, would naturally make “locality 
studies” before going far from camp. He would ob- 
serve certain landmarks and make others, so that 

85 


MIND: ITS ORIGIN AND GOAL 


he could the more easily notice them and trace his 
way back. This would be especially true if he were 
not following a single trail, but were likely to be 
called in any direction by the game which he sought. 

Of an Ammophila, a solitary wasp, which has been 
seeking a place in which to dig a nest, the Peckhams 
say: ‘At last a spot is selected and she begins to dig, 
but two or three times before the work is completed 
she goes away for a short flight. When it is done, and 
covered over, she flies away, but returns again and 
again within the next few hours to look at the spot 
and, perhaps, to make some little alteration in her 
arrangements. From this time on, until the cater- 
pillars are stored and the egg laid, she visits her nest 
several times a day, so that she becomes perfectly 
familiar with the neighborhood, and it is not sur- 
prising, after all, that she is able to carry her prey 
from any point in her territory in a nearly direct line 
to her hole—we say nearly direct, for there was al- 
most invariably some slight mistake in the direction 
which made a little looking about necessary before 
the exact spot was found. 

‘After days passed in flying about the garden— 
going up Bean Street and down Onion Avenue, time 
and time again—one would think that any formal 
study of the precise locality of a nest might be 
omitted, but it was not so with our wasps. They made 
repeated and detailed studies of the surroundings of 

86 


INTELLIGENCE AND INSTINCT 


their nests. Moreover, when their prey was laid down 
for a moment on the way home, they felt the necessity 
of noting the place carefully before leaving it. 

‘“Aporus faciatus entirely lost her way when we 
broke off the leaf that covered her nest, but found it, 
without trouble, when the missing object was re- 
placed. All the species of Cerceris were extremely 
annoyed if we placed any new object near their nest- 
ing place. Our Ammophila refused to make use of 
her burrow after we had drawn some deep lines in 
the dust before it. The same annoyance is exhibited 
when there is any change made near the spot upon 
which the prey of the wasp, whatever it may be, is 
deposited temporarily.” 

In a previous chapter we have laid down a test of 
the differentiation of intelligence from lower forms 
of mental life. This test was the ability to form asso- 
ciations. Later we have expressed the same thing in 
other words when we have given as another test the 
ability to learn through experience. Holmes unites 
these two tests in summing up his conclusions con- 
cerning the wasps, and I can do no better than to 
quote him. He says: “We are certainly justified in 
concluding that insects are not mere reflex machines 
incapable of learning by experience. They can form 
associations very quickly in many cases. They give 
evidence of memory. They have a remarkable ability 
for retaining impressions of topographical relations. 

87 


MIND: ITS ORIGIN AND GOAL 


We may not be compelled to admit that they have 
ideas, but it must be granted, I think, that a wasp 
which after cutting a caterpillar in two and carrying 
away one part, came back and searched diligently 
for the remainder, retained somehow an impression 
of the missing part and its location. If out of sight 
it was not out of mind. 

‘“‘As the wasp when it has disposed of the second 
moiety of caterpillar no longer returns, its mental 
content is evidently changed by having carried the 
part to its nest. If there is something representing 
‘part-of-caterpillar-among-leaves’ that leads the wasp 
on its hunt, we may conclude that there is also some- 
thing corresponding to ‘part-of-caterpillar-now-in- 
nest’ which prevents further search.” 

There seems to be little doubt but that insects do 
fulfil the requirements of the tests and show some in- 
telligence, but this exhibition of intelligence is prac- 
tically always in connection with some instinctive 
tendencies. Outside of these they are exceedingly 
stupid. The foundation of all associations in insects, 
as well as in other animals, is not so much association 
of experiences, as the association of experiences with 
the instinctive impulse. What is true of association 
is equally true of imitation in all lower animals; 
namely, that animal imitation is almost invariably in 
connection with their own instinctive movements. 
Numerous experiments have been made with ants 

88 


INTELLIGENCE AND INSTINCT 


and bees, which frequently perform acts of such un- 
doubted intelligence, revealing their inability to make 
even the simplest inferences in connection with mat- 
ters which are not immediately related to their in- 
stincts. After witnessing some actions which stir one’s 
enthusiasm and cause one to consider some insects 
to be very intelligent, one’s faith is shattered the 
following moment by the utter lack of intelligence 
when it might be expected to manifest itself. At most, 
a bee’s intelligence is of a very low order, but we can 
assert that it is undoubtedly present at times. 

If it is true that intelligence is always displayed 
along instinctive lines, we should expect to find what 
in reality we do find,—that the intelligence of ani- 
mals differs with their instinctive actions. On this 
account ant intelligence is different from crawfish 
intelligence, and cat intelligence is not the same as 
human intelligence in its application. However, they 
all agree sufficiently to come within the definition al- 
ready laid down. The gradual change in instincts, as 
the different species changed, would be followed by 
the gradual change in the application of intelligence. 
But intelligence in individual human beings differs; 
one has a genius for mathematics, while another may 
be absolutely unable to appreciate mathematical 
problems. The latter may be able to learn languages 
readily, which the former finds most difficult. Simi- 

89 


MIND: ITS ORIGIN AND GOAL 


larly, it is in the application of intelligence that ani- 
mals differ. 

Before we leave the discussion of instinct and in- 
telligence in connection with insects, we may well 
refer to the reputed communication between ants, and 
to a lesser extent among other insects. That there is 
some communication is undoubtedly true, but the 
method of it is somewhat uncertain, notwithstanding 
the investigations which have been made on this 
subject. At one time it was thought that certain 
sounds were made and recognized as in higher ani- 
mals. Now almost all that is predicated of them is a 
sign language, which operates through the cutaneous 
senses, rather than by sight or hearing; although 
all authorities do not agree on this. Striking with the 
antennae in different ways and upon different parts 
of the body of the recipient seems to be the chief 
means of imparting information or of calling for aid. 
While one ant can communicate with others about 
food and danger, and can lead these others to a feast 
or a fray, it is unable to tell them where the food or 
danger is. Among bees, notes of anger, or of danger, 
or even of distress, or of swarming are recognized, 
but the communications seem to be much fewer in 
number than among ants. 

In our discussion of instinct and intelligence we 
have used as examples the insects in which instinct 
is supposed to be the most highly developed, and in 


go 


INTELLIGENCE AND INSTINCT 


which intelligence is considered nearly absent. We 
have found undoubted examples of intelligence even 
among insects. As we progress higher, among the 
vertebrates and especially among the mammals, we 
find still more frequent and more sure signs of intelli- 
gence, until in monkeys and apes, the mammals most 
closely related to man, we find intelligence at its 
highest development among animals outside of the 
human species. As we find intelligence increasing we 
do not find instinct decreasing, but furnishing the 
impulse to action as surely in the higher animals as 
in the lower. 

The permanency of instincts is one of their chief 
characteristics. They are inherited elements and no 
training has been able to eradicate them, although 
it may change their manner of expression. Training 
is equally unavailing in the endeavor on the part of 
individuals to acquire them. They are constant fac- 
tors upon which we can always depend. Trotter has 
made a strong case for the thesis that human society 
has never been directed by intelligence but always 
impelled by instinct. Nothing has been more interest- 
ing and instructive in recent years than his wonder- 
ful diagnosis of conditions based on his interpre- 
tation of the different reactions of England and 
Germany to the herd instinct, and his prophecy of the 
course of the war, which was a legitimate conclusion 
of his interpretation. His words written in 1915 in 


gI 


MIND: ITS ORIGIN AND GOAL 


anticipation and prophecy were as accurate as those 
written by others in 1919 as history. They were al- 
most uncanny, but after all nothing more than scien- 
tific deduction from observed facts, just as science 
can predict that water will decrease or expand in 
different temperatures. 

The science of politics and government should 
be recognized as a branch of psychology, and 
prophets should arise and tell us in advance the 
results of other reactions to the same or different in- 
stincts under other circumstances. We realize that 
seldom will conditions be so concentrated, and con- 
sequently so favorable for prediction, as they were in 
1915, when the world was intent on one object; but 
it simply means that our diagnosis will have to be 
more careful and our prediction genuinely scientific. 
If it is true, as Trotter contends, that society has not 
yet been directed by intelligence, then there is the 
possibility that such direction may be injected which 
would correspondingly complicate the prediction. He 
sees in intelligence a new and unique factor. Instinct 
with its derivatives, he thinks, falls into line with the 
natural order and is no new departure, but intellect 
brings with it a new factor. When instinct and for- 
mer natural elements furnish desire, intelligence pro- 
vides purpose, and purpose is a new and pregnant 
force. Where this will lead us is difficult to predict, 
but the intelligence is not lawless, and if it does make 


Q2 


INTELLIGENCE AND INSTINCT 


itself felt we should, after study, be able to prophesy 
what the result of instinctive impulse and intelligent 
purpose will be, and so guide the world toward a 
desired goal. 


93 


CHAPTER VI 


IS MORALITY CONNECTED WITH ANIMAL 
IM PULSES? 


N calling attention to mental differences, and 

especially to the feeling on the part of many that 
the mental life of man is unique in character and 
calls for an origin different from other elements in 
his nature, we had occasion to touch on moral and 
religious experiences. It was pointed out that so im- 
portant an element as morality should on the creative 
basis be the most stable; but on the evolutionary 
hypothesis its very instability, pointing to its late 
appearance, is a proof of its importance, if there is 
any design in nature. It was further indicated that 
origin is no test of value, and that if it should be 
proved that our moral and religious life could trace 
its ancestry back to animal elements, that fact should 
in no way lower its value in the estimation of any- 
one who takes the trouble to investigate origins; for 
all origins are most humble, both individually and 
racially. Starting with these statements, we may con- 
tinue to examine further what we recognize as the 
highest development of the mental life of man. 

In a recent verse, ““To an Unknown Ancestor,” Mr. 
S. Omar Barker allows some credit to revert to an- 
cestry, in the following expression of gratitude: 


94 


MORALITY AND ANIMAL IMPULSES 


My gifts have come to me far down the years: 

I am the son of huntsmen of old time, 

The heir of timid virtue and of crime, 

Offspring of sluggards and of pioneers, 

Inheritor of juggled hopes and fears. 

Some gave me purity, some gave me grime 

Of damaged souls. Some of them helped me climb 
Toward God. From some came smiles, from others tears. 


Oh, I am cluttered up with legacies 

Long lives of jumbled blood have handed down, 
Yet I thank God upon my bended knees 

For him who, whether king or bawdy clown, 

By making sympathy his conscious art, 
Bequeathed the gift of kindness to my heart. 


Very good! But to whom was his ancestor indebted, 
and his ancestor’s ancestor? Langdon Smith in his 
famous poem, “Evolution,” goes back a little nearer 
to the source. Space permits the quotation of only 
two stanzas: 


Our trail is on the Kimmeridge clay, 
And the scarp of the Purbeck flags, 
We have left our bones in the Bagshot stones, 
And deep in the Coraline crags; 
Our love is old, our lives are old, 
And death shall come amain; 
Should it come today, what man can say 
We shall not live again? 


God wrought our souls from the Tremadoc beds 
And furnished them wings to fly; 


95 


MIND: ITS ORIGIN AND GOAL 


He sowed our spawn in the world’s dim dawn, 
And I know that it shall not die; 

Though cities have sprung above the graves 
Where the crook-boned men made war, 

And the ox-wain creaks o’er the buried caves 
Where the mummied mammoths are. 


Darwin made an interesting statement bearing on 
this subject. He said, “The following proposition 
seems to be in a high degree probable; namely, that 
any animal whatever, endowed with well-marked 
social instincts, would inevitably acquire a moral 
sense or conscience as soon as the intellectual powers 
had become as well developed, or nearly as well de- 
veloped, as in man.” His disciple, Romanes, put the 
matter in a negative form when he said: “It is certain 
that neither of these qualities [religion and morality ] 
could have occurred in that species [the human], had 
it not also been gifted with a greatly superior order 
of intelligence. For even the most elementary forms 
of religion and morality depend upon ideas of a much 
more abstract, or intellectual, nature than are to be 
met with in any brute.” While some people draw the 
distinguishing line between animals and men so as to 
separate the intellectual and moral elements, most 
people who do not accept the moral nature of man as 
a product of evolution deny also that the intellectual 
nature is to be accounted for in this way. The break, 


96 


MORALITY AND ANIMAL IMPULSES 


if there is any, should logically be placed between the 
physical and intellectual rather than between the 
intellectual and the moral qualities. Such staunch be- 
lievers and exponents of organic evolution as Wallace 
and Huxley did not believe that moral faculties, and 
especially moral practices, were derived from the 
lower animals. This much may be affirmed: we must 
have sufficient intellectual ability to distinguish 
values, present and future, before we can have a 
very high degree of morality. In laying a foundation 
of intellectual relationship with animals, we are, at 
least, making a moral relationship possible. 

The examination of our problem may be conducted 
in two different ways, according to the end at which 
we begin. We may examine the animal mentality to 
see if we can discover any factors which might de- 
velop into morals as we recognize them in human 
beings; or we may examine the moral nature and 
practices of man to see if we can discover any factors 
which bear any resemblance to the nature and prac- 
tices of animals. Perhaps we can do no better than 
to combine these two, for they are complementary, 
not exclusive. We have already noted that the in- 
stincts are as strong in man as they are in animals, © 
and show a very clear relationship both in quantity 
and quality. It is altogether likely that we shall find 
the basis of our moral nature wrapped up in instincts, 


97 


MIND: ITS ORIGIN AND GOAL 


and that they will show in their unfolding some bases 
for moral action. We noted, however, in connection 
with instincts, a distinction between animals and 
human kind which is most valuable in the study of 
morals; namely, that where in animals there is one 
direct response to instinctive impulse, in man there 
may be, in addition to this direct response, other 
supplementary responses to the same impulse. Due 
to man’s increased mental capacity he is provided 
with a wide variety of channels into which the instinc- 
tive impulse is free to flow. We may go a step further 
and say that with succeeding ages there may be added 
still other avenues as outlets, and thus more varied 
and more complex responses. 

While in man there are supplementary channels 
of response to instinctive impulses, the primary 
tendency is for the response to take place in a direct 
manner as in animals; and, except in rare cases, the 
opening of other channels is due to the repression of 
the primary mode and subsequent sublimation. Some 
moral actions may be thought of in this way; that is, 
the repression of the primary method, and the direc- 
tion of the instinctive impulse and energy into more 
desirable channels. For example, we have been 
taught that we should repress the fighting instinct; 
the meaning of this was that we should not attack 
our enemies with tooth and claw. From infancy we 
have been told: 


98 


MORALITY AND ANIMAL IMPULSES 


Let dogs delight to bark and bite, 
For God hath made them so: 

Let bears and lions growl and fight, 
For ’tis their nature to. 


But, children, you should never let 
Such angry passions rise; 

Your little hands were never made 
To tear each other’s eyes. 


The energy and impulse of pugnacity took the line 
of direct response in the dogs and the lions and the 
bears, but were supposed to be restrained in chil- 
dren, and completely repressed in their elders. 

However, they were not destroyed, for there seems 
to be a psychical conservation of energy as there is 
supposed to be a physical, and new outlets were 
opened. Instead of this immoral fighting, the energy 
appeared in a moral guise, and battles against evil and 
injustice were fought with equal energy and as gal- 
lantly won. Accompanying these victories were feel- 
ings of elation as gratifying as though our victory had 
been one growing out of a personal encounter with our 
arch enemy of another class, as when David slew 
Goliath. We have already called attention to the fact 
that the sexual instinct may be diverted from direct 
response, and turned into other creative channels; 
further illustrations might be equally well presented 
regarding other instincts. 

We have been led to view the fall of Roman civili- 


99 


MIND: ITS ORIGIN AND GOAL 


zation from the standpoint of eugenics, and to recog- 
nize that it was due to a deterioration of the racial 
stock, on account of the mating with slaves brought 
from the ends of the earth. Undoubtedly this has- 
tened the time when Roman dominance should cease. 
There may have been, however, a supplementary 
cause of a psychological nature. It may be expressed 
somewhat in this manner. With the continuous Ro- 
man victories over a wide stretch of territory, which 
caused Rome to be recognized as the Mistress of the 
World, slaves, the trophies of war, were brought to the 
homeland in great numbers, so as to make it unneces- 
sary for the Romans to lift a hand. Coming from all 
countries and being learned in all arts, these slaves 
anticipated and met every Roman want. The Romans 
were surfeited with leisure, and following the path of 
leisure inevitably came indulgence. With no demands 
and no restraint, indulgence of instinctive impulses 
naturally took the direct route, and primary or animal 
responses would be the rule. There were no repres- 
sions, there would be no sublimations, and morals 
would naturally be lacking. History confirms this 
view of the state of affairs in Rome, and we recog- 
nize the low moral condition of that time. Morals 
seem to be dependent upon repressions. 

It was not only in morals, however, that this lack 
of repression exhibited itself. Indulgence would natu- 
rally show itself, as indeed we know it did, in sexual 


IO0o 


MORALITY AND ANIMAL IMPULSES 


license. The sexual impulse is the basis of creative 
work, and, when sublimated, shows its energy in other 
creative functions. With the license and sexual excess 
displayed by the Romans, sublimation ceased, and 
consequently the creative work of the Romans in 
the arts and in government, for which they were 
justly celebrated, also ceased, and Rome and its 
civilization fell. 

Among the writers who in the past have endeav- 
ored to give us a solution of the question of the origin 
of morals, some have emphasized one instinct, some 
another, as the probable basis for our moral nature. 
Others, again, have emphasized the combination of 
more than one. The probability is that all the in- 
stincts have had a share—not an equal share—in 
the moral impulses, and that the intellect has directed 
these impulses, through experience, to give us our 
present moral practices. The keynote of morality is 
altruism, if we view the matter from the practical 
standpoint; or sympathy, if we emphasize the emo- 
tional element. In fact, Sutherland has defined mo- 
rality in terms of sympathy; he says, “Moral con- 
duct is that conduct which is actuated by a wise 
sympathy,” and he divides the virtues into groups 
according to their being essentially sympathetic, in- 
directly based on sympathy, and those which are 
moral only in so far as they are sympathetic. The 
search, then, is for such impulses or instincts as, 


IOI 


MIND: ITS ORIGIN AND GOAL 


either in themselves or when developed, show altru- 
istic or sympathetic factors. 

In the lower forms of animal life we can discover 
no evidence of sympathy or of altruistic impulse. 
Even as highly developed as are the ant and the 
bee, they show no apparent sympathy. It is true that 
their instincts impel them to work together, to tend 
their young, and to sacrifice themselves for the bene- 
fit of the colony, in a way to cause admiration and 
astonishment; but either insect will pass by, or crawl 
over, a wounded comrade with total unconcern. We 
may say that they do not recognize the suffering and 
need of the companion; probably not. We may also 
say that they do not recognize what they are doing 
when they spend themselves for the care, defense, 
and improvement of the colony. If we are to trace 
altruistic impulse to the lower animals, we are not 
at present able to go below the vertebrates for evi- 
dence. 

Even here we are not very successful in the lower 
forms. Fishes or reptiles may congregate for defense 
or for food-getting, but seem to be unconcerned 
with the care even of their own offspring; in fact, 
they may even devour them. It is probable that we 
find no real sympathy below the warm-blooded verte- 
brates, birds being the lowest form to show this 
quality. Probably the sympathetic instincts of birds 
may be traced below them to some unsympathetic 


I02 


MORALITY AND ANIMAL IMPULSES 


form, but for our purposes we are only concerned in 
finding sympathy below the human species. There 
seems to be some relation between the beginnings of 
sympathy and the development of the voice, the 
ability to make and to hear sounds being a great ad- 
vance in the method of communication, and com- 
munication being apparently a necessary prerequisite 
to sympathetic action. Perhaps we may say that the 
more complete the method of communication, the 
more likely we are to find sympathy. 

As limited as is their vocabulary, we have no 
trouble in understanding the language of birds. We 
distinguish notes which signify danger, warning, 
food, joy, or love; and by their actions we know that 
birds of the same and of other species receive the 
same meaning from the sounds. With such com-* 
munication, social sympathy is inevitable, for a bird 
cannot well receive a note of warning without acting 
on it. It is easily understood how such cooperation 
aids in the continuance of the species. Some birds co- 
operate for food-getting, for defense, for aid to the 
wounded, and all with apparent understanding of the 
object of their actions. For example, crows, and some 
other birds, set sentinels, which attend strictly to 
business and warn the flock of approaching danger, 
not feeding when the others do. A volume might be 
filled with examples of intelligent codperation among 
birds. 


103 


= 


* 


MIND: ITS ORIGIN AND GOAL 


It is, however, among mammals that we obtain 
our best examples, and it is apparent that this ele- 
ment of sympathetic action and cooperation in- 
creases as the intelligence of the species advances. In 
the higher mammals we see well-defined family 
groups and herd action showing intelligent coopera- 
tion and altruistic acts of such a character that there 
seems little doubt that real sacrifice is intended. A 
dog may not understand theoretically what he is 
doing when he warns his master of danger, and, re- 
fusing to flee, remains in the danger to help save the 
life of his master, but he surely does understand his 
own actions practically. It is in control of impulse 
that we have a test not only of intelligence but of 
morality, and a dog does at times control impulses, 
not only as a result of training, but as a result of 
sympathetic response to a need of one of his own 
species or of his master. Where a real purpose is in- 
volved, contrasted with mere impulse, we must see 
the beginning of what later develops into morality, 
if it has not already arrived. 

It has been pointed out that what we call morality 
in man has a forward look to ultimate good, but that 
animals respond only to immediate need. Well, per- 
haps so! But are we so sure of our human morality 
in this connection? Thorndike seems to disagree with 
this distinction. He says, “We fear, not the carriers 
of malaria and yellow fever, but thunder and the 


104 


MORALITY AND ANIMAL IMPULSES 


dark; we pity not the gifted youth debarred from 
education, but the beggar’s bloody sore; we are less 
excited by a great injustice than by a little blood.” 
This seems to indicate that our reactions are instinc- 
tive rather than rational, and are excited by imme- 
diate stimuli rather than by remote ends regardless 
of how praiseworthy they may be. But the fact that 
some man sees the incongruity of this, indicates that ‘ 
the ideal to which we are tending is an ultimate good 
which reason points out to us. This is but an example 
of a higher response to an instinctive impulse of 
which the human being is capable. 

While the instinctive impulses are just as strong 
and irradicable in man as in the lower animals (and 
we must deal with them as such, and hope that we 


can show how the moral life is impelled by them),*® 


there are two differences to be noted which have a 
deep influence on morals. In saying that owing to 
man’s superior intelligence there are more channels 
open to a response than in animals, we may be stating 
but half a truth; the other half may be that the 
higher in the scale of intelligence we go the more gen- 
eral and less specific the impulse is. These two half 
truths are supplementary—one may be the cause and 
the other effect—at any rate they make moral action 
out of instinctive impulse possible. The other truth 
concerning instincts which affects morals is the fact 
that in the human infant, compared with the animal 


105 


~~ 


MIND: ITS ORIGIN AND GOAL 


offspring, there is less accomplished before birth and 
more afterward. While this leaves the human infant 
less able to fight life’s battles at birth than his more 
humble cousins, it does permit the training of the 
instincts of the human infant while they are develop- 
ing. If it is in morals that the intelligence of the in- 
dividual and of the race is to influence the instinctive 
impulses, this opportunity to begin before the im- 
pulses are set and specific is most valuable, especially 
since the instincts are impossible to eradicate—il, 
indeed, we should wish to eradicate them. 

We sometimes see it stated that certain instincts, 
which make their appearance comparatively late in 
human beings, appear suddenly. This is not the case; 
they take years in maturing, and these years are a 

“great moral opportunity. In like manner, those in- 
stincts which disappear do not do so suddenly, but 
are usually more gradual and later in life than com- 
monly stated. At any rate the influences of their dis- 
appearance on morals is negatived by the fact that 
the moral result to be attained by such instincts is 
by that time crystallized by habit, and for good or 
evil is a part of the nature, as firmly fixed as the 
instinct itself. 

At certain definite periods in the life of the human 
child he is provided with certain instinctive impulses 
to action, and by the time he passes his adolescence 
all these impulses, guided by training, influenced by 


106 


MORALITY AND ANIMAL IMPULSES 


his own intelligence, and modified by circumstances, 
are in operation, and some on the decline. They have 
not come haphazard, but can be traced back to the 
instincts which existed long before man appeared, 
just as definitely as his own bodily organs can be 
traced. Sutherland, in his monumental work, has 
tried to show how selection, even in historic times, 
has had its effect. He says: “It may seem fantastic 
that within historic times actual physiological dif- 
ferences of nerve structure can have been developed 
in the race. Yet it is a sober fact, though demonstrable 
as yet by only indirect proofs. For we have seen that 
the man who is a good father, a good husband, and a 
good citizen is the ancestor of many progeny, while 
the Napoleonic type of abundant brains but deficient 
sympathies, even though it makes a brilliant career, 
perishes in a century or less from off the face of the 
earth. . . . One might have turned out a murderer 
and been hanged, another a robber and have been 
shipped to the plantations. One might have been 
killed by his own youthful immoralities, another 
refused a wife because of his disorderly life. In short, 
it is no exaggeration to say that out of 1000 possible 
ancestors, fifty would, on an average, be eliminated 
through the failure of parental, conjugal or social 
qualities. Indeed, in Elizabeth’s time, out of every 
1000 persons born five were actually hanged, as a 
matter of recorded statistics. But brawls, venereal 


107 


MIND: ITS ORIGIN AND GOAL 


diseases, and so forth were far more potent cleansers 
of society. Those thus eliminated would be replaced 
by men and women of better stock, and so we may 
feel sure that at each generation a steady 5 per cent. 
of the poorer type was withdrawn, leaving room for 
the expansion of those richer in sympathetic gifts. 
But the power of such a steady withdrawal, acting 
in cumulative fashion, is enormous when spread over 
a sufficient time; even 300 years are quite enough to 
produce visible effects; indeed, if we had a means of 
sifting the people of Queen Elizabeth’s time into two 
equal sets, those who could pass in those days for 
fairly good men and women, and those who were 
more or less distinctly below the average of moral 
conduct, it would be found that practically none of 
the inferior blood flows in the veins of the present 
generation; we being bred almost wholly from the 
better stock.” To this Thorndike replies: “The diffi- 
culty with such argument is, of course, the abundance 
of contrary cases. Were the brutal husbands hanged, 
or did they drive their long-suffering wives to early 
graves? Were the cut-throats and brawlers or the 
reformers and idealists debarred, by death, disgrace 
or imprisonment, from having offspring? Many pa- 
tient researches must be made before anybody can 
be sure of the relation of selection for survival and 
reproduction to any of the important original tend- 
encies in man, for even ten generations back.” It is 


108 


MORALITY AND ANIMAL IMPULSES 


true that research is necessary to make us positive, 
but Sutherland also points out that there has been 
some alteration in nerve reactions in favor of sympa- 
thetic action, for some reason or other, for our women 
of today could not endure the bloody spectacles in 
which the Roman women revelled. Without doubt 
we are living in a time of less cruelty than in any 
age which the world has seen. 

Maudlin and misdirected sympathy which, in this 
country at least, is wasted upon criminals, is working 
against the selection which was so effective in the 
reign of Elizabeth. Today, in the United States, mur- 
der is one of the safest enterprises, and can hardly 
be classed as a hazardous occupation. We have from 
eight to ten thousand homicides in the United States 
every year. According to statistics compiled by the 
Metropolitan Life Insurance Company last year, out 
of every one hundred and forty-six of these only 
sixty-nine indictments were found, from which thirty- 
seven persons received prison sentences, and one 
was executed! The record in New York City was 
far more unfavorable; the Whitman Committee 
found in 1920 that there was only one murder sen- 
tence to every six hundred and seventy-nine killings 
of all kinds in our metropolitan city. From the rec- 
ords of the city’s Chief Medical Examiner and from 
the courts, it has been found that in the seven years, 
1918-1924 inclusive, there were nineteen hundred 


109 


MIND: ITS ORIGIN AND GOAL 


and nine murders and two hundred and thirty-one 
convictions. How many of these convictions were for 
murder and resulted in execution was not stated, but 
probably not many. Contrasted with this unenviable 
record, Great Britain and her dominions are keeping 
down the number of homicides to about one-fifteenth 
of ours, in proportion to the population; and in Eng- 
land about ninety per cent of the murderers are either 
executed or commit suicide to prevent the inevitable 
execution. In 1921 there were two hundred and 
thirty-seven homicides in New York City, while the 
whole of England and Wales had ninety. In 1924 
New York City had two hundred and sixty-two, and 
London had sixteen—one to 500,000. The United 
States leads the world in its homicide rate, and Italy, 
with half the United States rate, is second. 
Regarding earlier ages, when intelligence was 
limited, and, on that account, the struggle for exist- 
ence was individual rather than social, it is necessary 
to recognize that the fighting qualities of the indi- 
vidual were the most important qualities. The sharp 
claw, the strong tooth, the swift foot, the savage 
temper, the selfish nature, all counted for the in- 
dividual and for the species. With changed conditions 
of intellect it is evident that the moral and social 
qualities which we possess are valuable, and as such 
have helped our species to survive. The victory is no 
longer to the swift and to the strong, but to the wise 


IIo 


MORALITY AND ANIMAL IMPULSES 


and to the good. Certain persons, who have not be- 
lieved in evolution, have complained that according 
to this theory nature is careless of the individual, 
but careful of the species; even so, is not this the 
very condition which the Christian doctrine of love 
and sacrifice also espouses? Every baby brought into 
the world, helpless as it is, is dependent upon love; 
and a race without love would soon be exterminated, 
or would exterminate itself. Nature, morals, and reli- 
gious teaching combine to demand the sacrifice of 
the individual parent for the race. No one would say 
that selfishness is entirely eliminated, or, indeed, 
should be eliminated; but the nicely balanced com- 
bination of selfishness and altruism is aiding in the 
preservation of the race as at present constituted. 
We may think of our moral qualities as being still 
on trial, on account of their unstable condition; but 
if they succeed, as they now promise to do, we may 
see the time when warfare shall give way to coopera- 
tion, when force shall be superseded by reason, and 
when the meek shall inherit the earth. 

It may be fitting for us at this time to ask ourselves 
what are the instincts to which we are primarily in- 
debted for our moral nature. Taking it as axiomatic 
that altruism and sympathy are the bases of morality, 
we find not one but several instincts concerned. 
Sutherland and, later, McDougall, lay emphasis upon 
the parental and conjugal instincts and relations, 


II! 


MIND: ITS ORIGIN AND GOAL 


which with the accompanying “tender emotion” are 
the earliest form of social feelings, and the family 
which they build up is the birthplace of moral rela- 
tions. On account of the quality and intensity of these 
feelings and relations they spread first to other rela- 
tives, then to neighbors, and finally to members of 
one’s own species generally. Of course there are ex- 
ceptions to this extension, and likewise we may find 
exceptions to its beneficial influence, but in general 
both are true. 

Added to the parental and conjugal instincts as 
a basis of sympathy, and thus of morality, by both 
of the above authors, is the instinct of gregariousness. 
' Some psychologists do not consider gregariousness 
as a primary instinct, but one derived from such 
others as parental, conjugal, and self-preservative. 
However, there is much in favor of classing it as a 
primary instinct. It is not experienced by all animals, 
but those who are gregarious seem to suffer if de- 
prived of the presence of the herd. Physical loneliness 
and, among higher animals, intellectual solitude can 
only be overcome by the presence of others of the 
same or similar species; and animals who have been 
isolated, when returned to the flock or herd, are not 
satisfied simply to be near, but rush into the midst 
of the herd and seem to wish to touch, and to hide 
among, the others. There seems to be no doubt but 
that this instinct makes the members of the herd 


II2 


MORALITY AND ANIMAL IMPULSES 


more friendly, and by this means they definitely co- 
operate for defense. It thereby comes to be the basis 
of loyalty to the flock and to the species. 

These three are the instincts from which Suther- 
land considers sympathy to be derived, and hence are 
the basis of all morals; McDougall adds others which ' 
he considers have contributed to moral tendencies. 
Pugnacity, so strong in all animals under certain con- 
ditions and so necessary for self-preservation, has 
connected with it the emotions of resentment and 
revenge. These emotions develop into indignation 
when social ideals have advanced so as to recognize 
certain actions against the group, and later give rise 
to ideas and practices of punishment and criminal 
justice. The instinct of pugnacity, with accompany- 
ing rivalry and competition, has always been recog- 
nized as a valuable instinct from the standpoint of 
the preservation of the individual and the species, but 
has sometimes been looked upon as a necessary evil. 
Morality has tried to adjust it, but has seemed to 
think that the proper course is to eradicate it. We 
recognize the value of the impulse in morality and in 
the preservation of the species today; by changing 
the method and the object of the attack from the 
physical encounter with other individuals, or the 
mass encounter in war, to the combat against in- 
justice and greed and to the battle against disease and 
organized crime, we may indulge the impulse to its 


113 


MIND: ITS ORIGIN AND GOAL 


utmost, and only good can result. Further, there are 
the instincts of acquisition and construction, which 
give rise to ideas concerning property and to the moral 
judgment with which they are connected. Finally, 
there are the instincts of self-abasement and self- 
assertion, called by some negative and positive self- 
feeling; while self-abasement is the subjective basis 
of respect to superiors, divine and human, out of 
self-assertion grows our idea of rights. They also 
furnish a basis for self-respect and self-condemna- 
tion. 

While these are the instincts which have played the 
largest part in the development of the moral nature, 
McDougall would not say that others have not aided. 
Indeed, others are included in the formation of senti- 
ments which have a distinctly moral tone. It seems 
most likely that all the instincts have contributed to 
the development of the moral nature, and are essen- 
tial to the formation of the highest manhood, to the 
well-being of society. While we speak of different 
instincts as being responsible for a certain act, there 
is no Clear-cut division between instinctive impulses, 
and several may combine to bring about an act which 
we name by the impulse which we consider chiefly 
concerned. Many writers designate certain instincts 
as primary or elemental in the formation of morality, 
and perhaps one phase of morality, such as sym- 
pathy, as the basis of the moral nature; in most cases, 


II4 


MORALITY AND ANIMAL IMPULSES 


however, supplementary instincts are recognized in 
the process, and derived or more complex ethical ele- 
ments are admitted to be present. 

The instincts which have been named, and others 
too, form the positive factor in the development and 
present expression of morals. In dealing with the 
positive factor and in emphasizing it, we must not 
forget an important negative factor referred to in 
an earlier part of the chapter. The repression of cer- 
tain instincts is the negative factor, but the negation 
of the primary expression of an instinct becomes a 
positive element when the instinctive impulse ex- 
presses itself in some other form of which the moral 
sense Can approve. 

It is altogether likely that in the endeavor to sim- 
plify the impulse and the product, we have neglected 
to recognize the complexity of the process. We see 
certain impulses inhibit others, and under certain 
circumstances modify them considerably. On the 
other hand, circumstances may be such as to 
strengthen certain instincts, which in turn aid in the 
expression of others. For example, the parental in- 
stinct, with its prolonged expression in the human 
race, has modified the sex influence by substituting 
feelings of common interest for the physical sex im- 
pulse. Coupled with both of these, the instinct of 
acquisitiveness has functioned so that a feeling of 
ownership has modified both, and such derived feel- 


II5 


MIND: ITS ORIGIN AND GOAL 


ings aS sympathy may in certain cases still further 
modify the original impulse. It therefore becomes 
very difficult, if not impossible, to designate any sin- 
gle instinct as the basis for moral nature, and more 
and more certain that practically all of them are in- 
volved. When we pass from animals to even the low- 
est men, we find less concentration and more amal- 
gamation of instinctive action, a broadening of sym- 
‘ pathy, and a correspondingly greater development of 
morality; but in no case is there any doubt about the 
source of the human reactions, even if the elements 
are somewhat differently compounded in human be- 
ings than in the lower animals. 

It may be a matter of present interest to suggest 
that the modification of the physical sex impulse by 
the parental instinct, just referred to, may have an 
influence on a condition that merits our attention. In 
1923, the latest statistics available, there were 165,- 
139 divorces in the United States! This was an in- 
crease of 16,324 over the previous year. The ratio 
of divorces to marriages for 1923 was one to seven 
and four-tenths, for 1922 it was one to seven and 
five-tenths. The state of Oregon had one divorce for 
every two and one-half marriages, while our neigh- 
bor, Canada, had one divorce for every one hundred 
and sixty-one marriages. It seems as if, in this coun- 
try, at least, the sex impulse may have been modified, 
but the parental instinct has not been correspond- 

116 


MORALITY AND ANIMAL IMPULSES 


ingly increased. Has not the time come to examine 
the ideal of marriage with the aim of putting it on a 
moral and social basis? Now the common notion of 
marriage seems to be the union of two persons to 
satisfy selfish desires—high or low—and religion 
and poetry have combined in the past to emphasize 
this. Should not the subject be rescued from this anti- 
social and immoral ideal? While the attraction of 
two persons for each other can never be eliminated, 
and should not be if it could, the hope of marriage, 
decried and assailed as it is, must be in an emphasis 
on the parental instinct and all that accompanies it. 
We must get marriage on an altruistic rather than 
on a selfish basis. Interest must be transferred from 
the two individuals originally involved, and how they 
happen to feel toward each other under certain cir- 
cumstances, to the offspring, how they are progress- 
ing, what contribution they are making to society 
and to the race, and how that contribution can be 
increased. Incidentally the common interest evolved 
by this means would correct some of the antago- 
nistic feeling engendered by the ennui of each other’s 
presence, when the mutual attraction of the first few 
years has declined, and the care of children, which 
nature intended for a first aid and substitute, has not 
come to reinforce it or to take its place. Selfishness, 
one fruit of which is childlessness, is responsible for 
the deplorable divorce conditions, and the altruistic 


117 


MIND: ITS ORIGIN AND GOAL 


element must be restored in the marriage relation, 
the proper means being through the exercise of the 
parental instinct. 

While instincts furnish the impulse and lay the 
general foundation for the moral life, we must not 
forget that reason, which might also be classed as 
an instinct peculiar to the higher animals, must guide 
in order to have the highest development of morals. 
Reason has a great advantage, which must not be 
neglected, for not only can the individual use his in- 
tellectual power modified by his individual experience 
in his problem, but he has as a guide the organized 
experience of the race. Some authors seem to em- 
phasize emotion as the keynote of morality even to 
the entire exclusion of reason; but if that were true 
in primitive races it would be less and less so in fu- 
ture generations, for reason must take its rightful 
place and guide the impulses which instincts provide. 

The Puritans, guided by a one-sided interpretation 
of scripture, insisted that all instincts and natural 
impulses were wrong and should be suppressed. The 
person who first formulated the doctrine of total de- 
pravity must have been unfortunate in his friends. 
In any case, there it was, and Jonathan Edwards 
made the most of it. Opposed to this there have been 
others, of whom G. Stanley Hall was foremost, who 
contended—rather inconsistently to be sure—that all 
of our natural impulses were right. Neither one of 

118 


OO 


MORALITY AND ANIMAL IMPULSES 


these positions is correct. Fortunately, through the 
intelligence which man possesses, he can judge so as 
to encourage the right, redirect the wrong, and guide 
all to a higher development. This power of self-con- 
scious evolution, this ability to change himself to 
correspond with his higher ideals concerning himself, 
is the glory of his existence and the hope of his 
species. He can only take himself as he finds himself, 
but that is no excuse for leaving himself that way. 
Sublimations do not come suddenly, and trying to 
modify and redirect harmful impulses is a slow proc- 
ess; the whole trouble with being good is that it is 
such a long task, but both for the individual and for 
the race it is one which is worth while. In the past, 
experiences which did not assist in survival were 
called evil—usually they dealt with immediate re- 
sults; the same thing may be predicated today but 
with this difference, we are now able to judge values 
from the standpoint of ultimate good—or more nearly 
so—and that inevitably means from the standpoint of 
morality, for morality must consider ultimate values. 


119 


CHAPTER VII 


IS RELIGION NATURAL TO MAN? 


N a previous chapter we have noted the high place 

which the moral and religious elements hold in 
the life of man, according to the evolutionary hy- 
pothesis. With us, today, the two are so intertwined 
in their recent history, and, to a less extent, in their 
practice, that it is difficult to separate them. In- 
vestigation in the more remote history of both, and 
examination of primitive races and tribes still living, 
show a wide variety in their relationships; we find 
religion with little morality, and morality with little 
religion, and all sorts of combinations. As the high- 
est development of mankind, it is worth while to in- 
vestigate them to see their relationship to the intel- 
lectual life of man. We found that we could trace 
the independent development of morals; let us see 
if we can do likewise with religion. 

In an endeavor to solve the question of the origin 
of religion there are two tendencies, both of which 
were more prominent in discussions a few years ago 
than now. The first is to affirm that religion is an in- 
stinct—an instinct common only to man. The second 
tendency is to deny the first contention, and then to 
endeavor to prove that religion is derived from, or is 
but another expression of, some one instinct. For 


I20 


IS RELIGION NATURAL TO MAN? 


instance, we have such expressions as, ““The differen- 
tial essence of religion is always reducible to sex 
ecstasy”; “The religious sentiment is composed first 
of all of the emotion of fear in its different degrees, 
from profound terror to vague uneasiness”; “The in- 
dividual of the gregarious species can never be truly 
independent, and self-sufficient. . . . This is the 
psychological germ which expresses itself in the reli- 
gious feelings.” The reason why these and other 
theories, founded on the idea that a single instinct 
is the origin of religion, have found acceptance is that 
they contain an element of truth. 

It is not necessary to examine very far into reli- 
gion to see that no one of these three instincts is 
sufficient to account for the origin of religion, or for 
its development as we now know it to be. Fear and 
the desire to propitiate an angry and powerful di- 
vinity undoubtedly account for some of the rites and 
ceremonies of early religions; gregariousness ac- 
counts for the social element in connection with cere- 
monies conducted by or for a tribe as a whole or by 
any number of people; and the sexual element im- 
plies the recognition of the value of fertility to the 
welfare of man, and accounts for further ceremonies. 
Gregariousness cannot account for the personal rela- 
tionships which are an important element in religion, 
fear cannot account for the faith and love elements, 
and sexuality fails to account for either of the others. 


I21I 


MIND: ITS ORIGIN AND GOAL 


These three instinctive factors are used simply as 
illustrations; and others, which are sometimes set 
forth as important in accounting for religion, might 
have been used equally well. 

If religion has always been an expression of the 
total mental life of man, as we believe it now is, we 
should expect these three instincts to be important 
in the development of religion, for they were influ- 
ential in the early history of the race. If infant men- 
tality recapitulates that of the race, we can affirm 
the strength of fears in early man on account of their 
prominence in early infancy, where they are easily 
aroused, but not always present. In awe and rey- 
erence, two of the emotions which now play a con- 
spicuous part in the religious life, fear is an important 
constituent. It is noteworthy, however, that Jesus, 
Mohammed, and other great religious leaders did not 
find fear a propelling power in their lives, and that 
fear as a motive in religion is becoming less and less 
powerful. Gregariousness also appears early in life, 
and, according to some of the late investigators in 
psychology, psychological sexuality is an infantile 
characteristic. 

We may go a step or two farther. Fear is definitely 
connected with self-preservation, or, as we are more 
apt to speak of it today, self-realization. Among the 
high ideals which we wish to set before our youth, 
those of self-realization are among the highest. The 


I22 


IS RELIGION NATURAL TO MAN? 


great examples, the great heroes, the great patriots 
are those who have reached the greatest heights of 
selfhood; and we point with pride to such per- 
sons, realizing that they have touched the borders of 
the divine. Yet, cannot the success of such realization 
be attributed directly or indirectly to fear? Gre- 
gariousness also is an instinct, the fruit of which is 
found on the loftiest boughs. Among our most cher- 
ished ideals are those of friendship and companion- 
ship, so desirable that we trust they will never cease; 
so beautiful is the ideal, that we have pictured it as 
one of the characteristics of heaven. This is also 
true of the highest ideals of self-realization. The sex 
instinct has been indissolubly connected with love, 
and human nature knows nothing finer or more beau- 
tiful; it is the theme of the poet and the analogy of 
the religious seer. Whatever may be our objection to 
the raw instincts, in our search for religious origin, 
there can be no objections to their developed states 
as constituent parts of the finished product. 
However beautiful these elements may be, reli- 
gion is Certainly not any one of them or merely a com- 
bination of them as such. It is a new experience. May 
we not return to the reference to isomerism which was 
made in the second chapter? Then it was affirmed 
that like elements in combinations formed very un- 
like products. Unlike elements in combination would 
form, not a simple sum of these elements, but a prod- 


125 


MIND: ITS ORIGIN AND GOAL 


uct even more unlike the original elements. Chemi- 
cal combinations may furnish examples for us: oxy- 
gen, which is necessary to combustion, and hydrogen, 
which is highly combustible, form water, a product 
which is destructive to combustion. Religion may 
be traced to certain elements, but the product is 
different from any of them or all of them. 

We have already seen that the test cannot be by 
origins, and that in evolution there is a continual 
creation. The new is a product of the old, but there 
is something additional, uniquely characteristic of 
the new. Every psychic element cannot be analyzed 
into something more simple or more aged; there are 
certain emotions which are those emotions and noth- 
ing else. We have aesthetic emotions which accom- 
pany aesthetic experiences and no others. We have 
certain taste experiences which can be aroused by 
certain objects and no others. In addition to the ele- 
ments into which we can analyze our religious emo- 
tions, there are unique elements, which are experi- 
enced at no other times, and can be aroused in no 
other way. We have no reason to think, however, that 
these unique factors are other than the result of com- 
binations, even if the total experience contains a fac- 
tor in addition to the sum of the elements. 

Religion is not an instinct, neither is it founded on 
a single instinct; but it, as nearly as any possible 
human experience, comprehends the total mental 


124 


IS RELIGION NATURAL TO MAN? 


capital of the human individual. The evolution of re- 
ligion has not depended upon some small addition 
here or upon some small subtraction there, neither 
has it been brought about by a sudden flowering of 
some particular trait, however beautiful it might be. 
It is not to be accounted for, either, by the sudden 
sloughing off of a particular, undesirable trait. Reli- 
gion is the result of the evolution of the whole human 
personality and was made possible only when the 
evolution had progressed so far as to include intelli- 
gence. While we have the instincts of sex, fear, and 
gregariousness in the lower animals, we have no re- 
ligion, nor anything approaching it, for there is not 
sufficient mental ability either for its origin or for 
its continuance. On the other hand, ethnology knows 
no portion of the human race devoid of religion. If 
one looks over the list of human instincts as given 
on a previous page he will not find one which does not 
enter in as a factor in religious experience; likewise, 
if one prepared a list of strictly intellectual factors, 
he would find that they, too, are prominent in reli- 
gious experience. 

There are no innate factors as clearly belonging 
to religion as there are to morality. Moral obligation 
is a unique element which has no counterpart in reli- 
gion. There are no emotions which are individually 
peculiar to religion, but their combination provides 
the characteristic which we call religious. Awe, won- 


125 


MIND: ITS ORIGIN AND GOAL 


der, fear, love, and other emotions may be used in 
other experiences, but never in the same relation as 
in religion. There is also a special dependence upon 
abstract ideas, which calls for a high intellectual de- 
velopment, and gives body, elasticity, and lofty char- 
acter so noticeable in religious experiences. 

If it were necessary to classify religion, perhaps 
we could do no better than to designate it as a senti- 
ment, according to the McDougall definition, except 
that it would be more comprehensive. McDougall, 
following Shand, defined a sentiment as “an or- 
ganized system of emotional tendencies centered 
about some object.” Sentiments have their origin in 
the native reactions of instincts and emotions, but 
differ from both in being more comprehensive and 
more complex. Wright points out that if religion were 
a definite instinct it would not be capable of evolu- 
tion except as instincts are, which is slowly if at all; 
if, on the other hand, it were propagated by imitation 
and suggestion it would change as rapidly as do the 
fashions. As a sentiment, however, it is conservative 
in its changes, like customs, morals, and institutions. 

While we are able to track the moral nature of 
man into animal life and can closely trace the descent, 
we cannot say the same of religion except in a very 
indirect way. There are certain animal emotions and 
instincts of a non-religious type, which when later 
found in man contribute somewhat to human reli- 

126 


IS RELIGION NATURAL TO MAN? 


gious life, but do so only in their human form, guided 
by human intelligence, and reacting to human social 
conditions. The fact that so many different people 
find so many different virtues as the one source from 
which religion is derived, shows its very complex 
nature. 

We have every reason to think that religion has 
had a natural history and development, that there 
was a time in the history of the race when religion 
was unknown, that it originated as other mental atti- 
tudes and sentiments have originated, and that its 
development has followed the laws which the im- 
pulses and social environment demanded. From the 
nature of the case its origin would be later than that 
of moral conduct, but after the beginning they de- 
veloped side by side. The latter consists, among other 
things, of the inhibition of instinctive impulses of 
the individual, in order that he may conform to social 
customs or demands. This could have, in a crude way, 
considerable force in the early days of the race, when 
intelligence was not developed beyond the practical 
stage. Religion could not be possible until man be- 
gan to philosophize and to ask, ‘““Why?” The answer 
to that question was probably, from the beginning, 
centered around beings superior to man, and has de- 
veloped in a tortuous way until it has arrived at the 
exalted conception of the Christian God. This asking 


127 


MIND: ITS ORIGIN AND GOAL 


why, this craving for causality, links up religion in 
its origin with science. 

In most discussions of the origin of religion we 
usually find the emotional or instinctive element em- 
phasized, or perhaps both. Rarely do we find that re- 
ligion is very closely united to an intellectual factor 
in the theories of beginnings. Yet we see that until 
the intellect had developed to the human level reli- 
gion was unknown, showing that the intellectual ele- 
ment, even if it were used for no other purpose than 
that of organizing or directing the emotional and in- 
stinctive factors, was necessary to the appearance 
of the religious life. It should further be noted that 
the intellectual instincts and emotions, as, é.g., curi- 
osity, wonder, and awe, have a prominent part in 
most theories of religious origin. The intellectual ele- 
ment in present-day religion is supposed to center 
around the creed. This is far from true; the creed has 
come to be a part of the ritual to be repeated, rather 
than an element incorporated into one’s beliefs. The 
intellectual factor is more often indicated by the 
philosophical question, ‘““Why?” and may show itself 
more frequently in an endeavor to find a rational 
basis for beliefs and practices than in the uncritical 
acceptance of a creed prepared for other people and 
for other times. 

The intellectual element may also show itself in an 
attempted reconciliation or in a supposed warfare be- 


128 


IS RELIGION NATURAL TO MAN? 


tween science and religion. It is probably incorrect 
to state the issue this way, but it should be said, “‘be- 
tween sciences and religions.” Some sciences seem 
never to conflict with some religions, while others are 
in continual disagreement. The basis of both science 
and religion is the same; namely, intellectual curi- 
osity: and if we are living in a universe, curiosity 
must be satisfied in a way which will be antagonistic 
to neither. An evolutionary basis for both must per- 
mit of advancement as new facts are presented, and 
as new problems call for solutions. Religion and sci- 
ence must adjust themselves mutually, as two sci- 
ences must do, and each adapt its theories to new 
knowledge as it is revealed. Only thus can the intel- 
lectual element be satisfied in both. 

As far back as we can trace them, religion and 
morality were not very closely connected. Religion 
was very slow in linking itself up with morality, and 
remained non-moral even among the Babylonians, 
Greeks, and Romans. It was purely ritualistic. 
Homer’s gods had no interest in their own moral 
conduct, much less in the morals of those who wor- 
shipped them. Later, morality, as the highest type of 
mental reaction, was attributed to the gods, and the 
moral level of the people thereafter could be deter- 
mined by the morality of their gods. For example, 
we can see how prominent fear was in the religion of 
the people by the sanguinary sacrifices which they 


129 


MIND: ITS ORIGIN AND GOAL 


thought necessary to offer to their gods; we can cal- 
culate the stage of sexual morality of a people by 
the rites and ceremonies performed in religious wor- 
ship. 

Morality and religion have been very important 
to each other: morality has given body and weight 
to religion, and religion has given sanction and au- 
thority to morality. By their fusion, the combined 
wisdom of social inheritance and latest intelligence 
has been incorporated into religion, and the sacred- 
ness of religious conceptions has been transferred to 
morality. This combination must have had a sur- 
vival value in man, or it would not be so universally 
found; moreover, the fact of its universality indi- 
cates an early origin in the race. 

In a universe, no part can be alien or antagonistic, 
but each part must be codperative and helpful. If 
intellect is a part of the cosmic process, and we be- 
lieve it to be an important part, its function in the 
universal scheme is not creative but guiding and 
directing. With each advancement in mentality the 
regulating power of the universe is increased. Thus 
the addition of intellect to the instinctive life de- 
veloped new methods of adaptation and aided in the 
possibilities of the extension of life. Intellect has 
proved to be not only a valuable aid in direction, but 
a great addition to human, and hence universal, 
power. With every increase of power, however, there 


130 


IS RELIGION NATURAL TO MAN? 


is an insistent demand for further regulation,—for 
more careful and exact direction. This function the 
moral and religious life of man supplies, and its im- 
portance cannot be exaggerated. Intellectual decay 
in the mass or in the individual is shown by, and natu- 
rally follows, moral and religious decline. We can 
easily recognize the immense importance of religion 
in the early history of the race, especially in giving 
a broadness and a solidarity to the social group; but 
it seems that our proximity to the situation prevents 
our recognizing its equal importance to present-day 
problems and conditions. The very fact of our great 
increase in social inheritance demands the most ex- 
tensive use of every guiding and regulating principle. 

While religion is not the result of one specific in- 
stinct, and its expression is conditioned by social en- 
vironment, it is none the less a development from 
innate impulses. It is a complex characteristic in- 
herent in the very structure of the human mind, and 
its expression fulfils a need which must be recognized, 
not only by theologians, but by biologists. It is usu- 
ally connected with morality and preferably but not 
_ necessarily so. A lack of religious experience is a loss 
to man as he is at present constituted, and, in fact, 
as he always has been constituted so far as we are 
aware. 

Is religion natural to man? It is not only natural 
but inevitable. We recall, in this connection, Saba- 


131 


MIND: ITS ORIGIN AND GOAL 


tier’s saying, “Man is incurably religious.” Given 
his history, showing the various psychological fac- 
tors of his make up, when sufficient intelligence had 
developed the natural result was religion. Then it 
appeared with all its crudities and imperfections, to 
be gradually refined as intelligence and its con- 
comitants developed. The question is not, and never 
has been, “Is man religious?” but, “What kind of 
religion does he have?” Our philosophy of life, espe- 
cially as. it is related to our idea of a first cause or 
creator of the universe, will determine the kind of 
religion we shall have, and its moral connections 
and requirements will determine its practical appli- 
cation. 


132 


CHAPTER VIII 


HAS INTELLIGENCE INCREASED IN HISTORIC 
TIM ES? 


HERE have recently been certain facts brought 
to our attention, which in the hurry and excite- 
ment of these modern days have made little impres- 
sion upon the general mass of humanity, but have 
deeply stirred a few thinkers. They have come prin- 
cipally in the form of warnings, and have led some to 
speculate on the destiny of intelligence. The tend- 
ency of evolution has been, on the whole, in the line 
of advancement; but there are not wanting numerous 
examples, along the way, of species which have at- 
tained a comparatively high status, and have subse- 
quently degenerated. We understand that man is 
subject to the same laws as other animals, and as we 
have risen so we may fall. These warnings have led 
us to formulate certain plans looking to the elimina- 
tion of more or less well-defined degenerating tend- 
encies and practices. After all, it is the high develop- 
ment of intelligence which is man’s distinguishing 
characteristic, and it is worth making some effort to 
retain it. 
We shall never know exactly how long it is since 
man appeared on the earth, and from the nature of 
the case the time must be very indefinite, for his ad- 


133 


MIND: ITS ORIGIN AND GOAL 


vent was gradual. Anthropologists place the time 
of the Cré-Magnon man, the oldest specimen of our 
present species, at about 25,000 years ago, and be- 
lieve that the Javan specimen, the oldest known hu- 
man form, lived a half million years ago. It is natu- 
ral and legitimate to ask whether there has been any 
development of intelligence since the time of the Cro- 
Magnon man, for 25,000 years seems sufficiently 
long to note a change. Unfortunately we have not 
the data upon which to found an opinion, for our 
definite facts are confined to historical times, say 
three or four thousand years, and that, certainly, is 
too brief a period to act as a foundation for any defi- 
nite statement concerning the advance or retrogres- 
sion of the species. This much may be said, however: 
so far as it is possible to found an argument upon 
the parallelism existing between the brain size and 
intelligence, there has been neither advance nor retro- 
gression; for though the brain of the Cré-Magnon 
was really larger than that of the modern, average 
man, his whole body was larger—the ratio between 
the weight of his brain and his body being about the 
same as that of the average modern man. 

Some have thought that the differences existing be- 
tween the various races now upon the earth show the 
progress of man since his first appearance. It has al- 
ready been pointed out that this would be strictly 
true only if we knew that these races followed the 


134 


HAS INTELLIGENCE INCREASED? 


same line of development as did the ancestors of the 
higher types. It would not be difficult to arrange the 
different races in a graduated scale according to in- 
telligence and knowledge so as to present a fair il- 
lustration of man in his development. Before this can 
be done to any advantage we must have more agree- 
ment among anthropologists, and have them answer 
for us some pertinent questions. Where did man first 
appear, and consequently which are the oldest races? 
Did man have more than one birthplace, 7.e., did he 
develop from different stocks and appear at different 
places, even if not at the same time? What was the 
order of development of the different races? The 
most primitive races today live a life not unlike the 
life which we should expect the prehistoric man to 
live, and which the evidence from recent discoveries 
shows that he did live. In other words, limited in- 
telligence circumscribes life and leads different peo- 
ple to do the same things and to do them in the same 
way. 

Anthropologists are not only showing us the wide 
differences in intelligence between the different races 
of men, but recently have differentiated certain 
fundamental stocks in the white race and designated 
certain physiological stigmata. These stocks are the 
tall, fair-skinned, blue-eyed, light-haired, long- 
headed Nordics, inhabiting the northwest of Eu- 
rope; the sturdy, short, dark-skinned, darker-eyed, 


135 


MIND: ITS ORIGIN AND GOAL 


brown-haired, round-headed Alpines, inhabiting the 
central east of Europe; and the small, dark-skinned, 
black-eyed, black-haired, long-headed Mediterra- 
neans, inhabiting the south of Europe. In addition 
to these physical characteristics, there are also ac- 
companying mental characteristics; the Nordics, for 
instance, showing the greatest intelligence, an ad- 
venturous spirit, and a talent for leadership. It is 
quite evident that the light hair, eyes, and skin are 
furthest removed from the original type of man; if 
intelligence is a matter of development, we should 
expect that the type furthest removed from the origi- 
nal might be the one in which the intelligence has the 
greatest development. The accomplishments of the 
people who conform to these types lead us to the con- 
clusion that Nordics are superior in intelligence, and 
tests confirm this; but of course there are wide indi- 
vidual differences. These differences between the 
races of men, and corresponding differences between 
different stocks in the same race, show the variation 
from, and superiority to, primitive types, and give a 
very good illustration of the course of evolution, 
which is never in a straight line but in branching 
form, the main trunk of which is crooked and 
gnarled. 

The outstanding development of different peoples 
showed itself in favored places, as in the river valleys 
of warm countries. These valleys, however, had suffi- 

136 


HAS INTELLIGENCE INCREASED? 


cient drawbacks to force the inhabitants to the high- 
est uses of their mental powers in order to arrive at 
their high status. The outstanding examples are the 
valleys of the Euphrates and the Nile. One prominent 
illustration of the high development of intelligence, 
showing itself against a background of inferior peo- 
ple, is that of the Golden Age of Greece. Attempts 
have been made to link these Greeks with the Nordic 
race by those who claim the Nordic intellectual su- 
periority. It is altogether likely that the general in- 
telligence of the higher classes of Greece was as high 
as that of America today—perhaps higher. Galton 
considered the average ability of the Athenian race to 
be about two grades higher than the Anglo-Saxon at 
his time, 7.¢., about as much higher as the Anglo- 
Saxon race is above the African negro. Cooley, on the 
other hand, produced a list of Englishmen born 
within a century, the century beginning at 1550, 
which he considers at least equal to the Athenian list 
given by Galton. Perhaps it is not fair to compare 
this group of Athenians with the Americans of to- 
day, for they represent a sporadic or freak bunching 
of intelligence rather than the regular development 
of the intelligence of the race. We have other exam- 
ples of this beside the group of Englishmen born be- 
tween 1550 and 1650. The seventy-five great Italian 
painters were born from the thirteenth to the six- 
teenth centuries, over half of them in one century 


137 


MIND: ITS ORIGIN AND GOAL 


and the three greatest within nine years. The men 
whose writings form the literature of this country, 
and whose works are referred to as American classics, 
were born between the years 1783 and 1814. A group 
of great American preachers was born between the 
years 1813 and 1835. Other characteristic groups 
could be cited. The point is that such groups appear, 
do their work, and leave no successors, and conse- 
quently only groups on the crests of the waves should 
be compared, and not a group with the average in 
the trough of the sea. The average of the total in- 
habitants of Greece would not be any higher than, 
if as high as, that of America; for the lower and 
slave population would cut down the average. This 
high development was a variation which, from causes 
we shall discuss later, soon disappeared, and shows 
little trace in the Greeks of today. The point of in- 
terest to us in this connection is that when we com- 
pare those Greeks of three thousand years ago with 
the people of today, or with the sporadic groups 
which show exceptionally high powers in special lines, 
we find no development of intelligence. It has al- 
ready been stated that this amount of time is insuffi- 
cient to use as a basis for any deduction along this 
line. 

This brings us back again to the question whether 
there has been very much mental development or if 
we are not deceived by other factors. Our increased 

138 


HAS INTELLIGENCE INCREASED? 


knowledge passed on from generation to generation— 
known as our social inheritance—leads one to think 
of our vast superiority to the Greeks or to any other 
former people; but should we be rash enough to 
affirm that had they been brought up in our environ- 
ment they could not have comprehended the things 
which we do? We should probably all agree that they 
had sufficient mental ability to do so. It is our various 
forms of education which lead us to believe that our 
mental development is much more than it is. The 
number and variety of our schools and the unlimited 
multiplication of our courses lead us to think of, and 
to proclaim, a mental superiority which a more criti- 
cal survey would deny. 

There are also certain factors in modern civili- 
zation which seem to emphasize this deception. 
Crowded as we are into large cities the very mass 
leads us to mistake quantity for quality—we are able 
to bring such great things to pass. There is also a 
new expression of old traits due to sublimation caused 
by the repression which the congestion of large num- 
bers engenders. Our forefathers on the farm and 
prairies expressed themselves freely and naturally, 
for they knew their neighbors for miles around and 
had known them for decades. Today, surrounded 
by persons unknown, with one’s next-door neighbors 
total strangers, there is necessarily lacking the free- 
dom and frankness of former days, and the resulting 


139 


MIND: ITS ORIGIN AND GOAL 


repression causes our mental force to express itself 
in new and unconventional ways. This new experi- 
ence, which is sometimes thought of as new power, 
misleads us into thinking of ourselves as superior 
because different. 

There are other reasons why we think of ourselves 
as superior, probably much more superior than we 
really are, but I shall mention only one more. The 
variety of superiority or the specialization of intelli- 
gence leads us to think of the race as incorporating all 
of our many accomplishments and powers, when really 
any single individual possesses only one of them. 
This difference or specialization is due to nature’s 
lust for variety. From the dissimilarity of individuals 
we may judge that she is willing to try anything once. 
The multiplicity of mental factors is united in dif- 
ferent persons in various proportions, so that not in- 
frequently we find some mental factors exaggerated 
at the expense of others. Patrick Henry could not 
write an understandable report; Washington Irving 
was tongue-tied. Blind Tom had marvellous musical 
ability, but intellectually was little above an idiot. 
Recently I visited an institution for feeble-minded 
where I saw a man with mentality so low that he was 
unable to learn to read or write—about four or five 
year ability—yet he could immediately tell correctly 
the day of the week of any date within forty years 
of the present—past or future. Mathematical autom- 

140 


HAS INTELLIGENCE INCREASED? 


ata, memory prodigies, and similar persons with 
apparent ability of very high quality in one particu- 
lar are not infrequently of inferior ability in other 
respects. On the other hand, we find men of ability 
approaching genius in more than one department— 
Julius Caesar was a general, statesman, orator, and 
writer; Descartes was eminent as a mathematician 
and as a philosopher; Holmes was a physician and an 
author. Modern complexity hides similar all-around 
ability; Helmholtz wrote an authoritative book on all 
the sciences, now no one can cover thoroughly a sin- 
gle field of one science. The point which I am trying 
to emphasize here is that mental differences are 
thought of as showing the development of mental 
power in the race, when they really show the varia- 
tion in individuals and may have little or no relation 
to the mentality of the race as a whole. 
Notwithstanding the assertion of the Declaration 
of Independence, it was never believed that two men 
were equal, not to mention “all men.” It is neither 
self-evident nor capable of proof. Just what the dif- 
ferences are we are still unable to define fully or to 
measure accurately. A tremendously long step has 
nevertheless recently been taken. The advent of men- 
tal tests less than a score of years ago and their prac- 
tical application during the last decade have made 
some sort of measurements possible; and the war, 
with its enlistment of vast numbers of men, com- 


IAI 


MIND: ITS ORIGIN AND GOAL 


pleted the conditions whereby a wonderful experi- 
ment could be made. The measuring of the intelli- 
gence of two million men, and the critical study of 
three-quarters of a million records of men in the 
United States army were feats the significance of 
which has hardly yet been realized. 

This experiment and the resulting measurements 
have provided us with means whereby mental differ- 
ences can be more definitely valuated. The range of 
difference caused comment, and the number of those 
with exceedingly high score was noteworthy. The 
greatest astonishment, however, was caused by the 
number of low scores and the low average of this 
body of men which must be considered representative 
on account of the character of the draft. The results 
of these tests naturally caused a great deal of excite- 
ment and not a little discussion. Many took refuge 
in denial, for it was so much easier to make a blanket 
denial of the results than to face the facts and to try 
to remove or remedy the causes. Tests now so com- 
monly given in schools and colleges have tended to 
confirm the results of the army tests, and there face 
us the stern facts which we must meet. Some of these 
dangers will be discussed later. For our present pur- 
pose, however, it is chiefly essential that we note two 
points in these results; namely, the wide range of 
difference in intelligence, and the fact that this differ- 


142 


HAS INTELLIGENCE INCREASED? 


ence when subjected to quantitative tests does not in- 
dicate a development of the intelligence in the race. 

The so-called intelligence tests simply indicate the 
potential mentality of the individual as a result of 
heredity, and the wide variation in this one factor 
has been already noted. This, however, is not the only 
mental factor in which variation is prominent. Al- 
most any other factor would serve equally well as an 
example, even if we have not tests by which to make 
quantitative measures. The difference in musical ap- 
preciation is well known. At one extreme we have 
the great composers whose names have become im- 
mortal, and at the other we have those to whom music 
makes no appeal, either to soothe the savage breast, 
or to provide pleasure and entertainment. Neither 
the beauty of harmonious sounds nor the rhythm 
makes any appeal. What is true of music is equally 
true of other forms of art. 

Leaving the artistic, we find the same variation in 
the more practical activities of life. Of two linotype 
operators with equal experience, one may set twice as 
much type as the other. Of two insurance solicitors 
with equal experience and devoting their entire time 
to the work, one may sell three hundred and fifty 
times as much as the other. Of two coal miners with 
equal experience and equally favorable mine condi- 
tions, one may load twelve times as much coal as the 


143 


MIND: ITS ORIGIN AND GOAL 


other. These results may depend upon motivation. 
The observation of Seashore that one man’s ear may 
be three hundred times as keen as another’s, how- 
ever, precludes motivation and training entirely. 
Some people seem to have a genius for industrial or- 
ganization, and every gesture results in increased 
production at lower costs; others are as apt in finan- 
cial affairs. We have great inventors, the product of 
whose wonderful mentality opens up new worlds to 
us, and causes us to blame ourselves for not having 
recognized relationships which seem so plain after 
they are revealed to us. Great men of science, by 
dint of industry and ability, discover the laws of the 
universe and their application to everyday life. If 
we have these, we as surely have others who are un- 
able to see the processes by which these marvels are 
worked out even after they are shown, and, for ex- 
ample, think that if a man of financial genius obtains 
money it must have been by dishonest means. Then 
we have all grades between these extremes so as to 
make a graduated scale. 

Nothing is more apparent than mental difference, 
and if we think of the race as having developed on 
account of the geniuses, we must think of it as hav- 
ing degenerated on account of the feeble-minded. 
While we may be able to strike an average in connec- 
tion with any one mental trait or power, it is difficult 


144 


HAS INTELLIGENCE INCREASED? 


for us to do so in connection with all of them. One 
thing seems to be incontrovertible: whatever else 
civilization has done for us it has given us opportunity 
to display and to use every vestige of mental power 
we have; and this wide variety of expression has un- 
doubtedly led us to think of the race as having a high 
development when it may be only that we have had 
a better opportunity to exhibit what mentality we 
possess. 

While it is thought by some that a study of art, 
which shows the progressive intelligence in the face, 
proves that evolution has been continuing in the last 
millennium, it is altogether unlikely that we can defi- 
nitely say that the race has developed in historical 
times as far as mental power is concerned; again it 
may be said that the time is not sufficiently long for 
a test so that we can affirm that mentally the race is 
progressing or retrogressing. The reason why there 
has been so little change is not wholly due to the 
shortness of the time, but probably as much to the 
monotonous circumstances which have surrounded us 
during that time. If the same length of time were 
taken up by some catastrophic event, such as a gla- 
cial period, it is likely that the struggle for existence, 
due to the forcing of half the population of the world 
out of their homes, would facilitate evolution, and 
cleanse the race of much of its inferior stock. En- 


145 


MIND: ITS ORIGIN AND GOAL 


vironment has never created ability; but by means of 
unfavorable conditions forcing mentality to its high- 
est use and function, and thereby eliminating the un- 
fit, it has helped in the development of the race. 


146 


CHAPTER IX 


ARE WEIN DANGER OF INTELLECTUAL 
DECLINE? 


HERE are certain dangers which threaten the 

development of intelligence in the human race, 
most, if not all, of which can be removed whenever we 
determine to remove them. When we become as much 
interested in human beings as we are in cattle, and 
swine, and poultry, we shall not take long to eliminate 
them, or to bring about conditions to rectify them. 
That we have tolerated them so long does not speak 
well for our intelligence, and particularly does it point 
to a lax condition of our morals. The time has surely 
arrived when we shall have as high a standard for 
racial and national intelligence and morality as we 
now profess to have for individual. 

1. The first of the great dangers to the race is that 
of war. It is named first because the ravages of armed 
conflict are so apparent on account of the proximity 
of the last war. We can look back to the time in his- 
tory when war was not such a one-sided scourge,— 
when there was something which could be entered 
upon the other side of the ledger; that time has now 
passed. At one time wars tended to purify the race by 
eliminating the weak; this was when personal conflict 
was the keynote of war, and not only strength of body 


147 


MIND: ITS ORIGIN AND GOAL 


but mental ability might be the deciding element in 
the encounter. In these days of trench warfare, high 
explosive shells, long range guns, poison gas, and 
other contributions of modern science no selection 
can be made by the encounter itself. The selection 
which is made is in the choice of men who should go 
to fight. Men of weak bodies, weak nerves, and weak 
minds are rejected and not permitted to fight—only 
the fittest and choicest are chosen for cannon-fodder. 

In such a pernicious system as that employed by 
Great Britain and her colonies and dominions at the 
beginning of the war, the results were especially bad. 
In a voluntary system, when armies are raised by 
enlistment, the finest types are the first to rush to 
the colors. We know what happened to the first 
armies. The weak physically, mentally, and morally 
held back, and some were never required to go. They 
are still left to propagate their kind. In scores of 
colleges throughout the Empire there was not a 
physically fit man remaining. In compulsory service 
like that of France, Germany, Austria, and Italy 
and in the selective draft in the United States the case 
was not so bad until the draft became severe; but 
even here the fittest men of the draft were chosen to 
fight, and the weakest were given other occupations. 
Young men with the strongest bodies and keenest 
minds were chosen for lieutenants; these lieutenants 
had to lead the charges, with the result that the mor- 

148 


DANGERS OF INTELLECTUAL DECLINE 


tality among them was comparatively greatly in 
excess of that of any other ranks. The same selec- 
tion and mortality were characteristic of the air serv- 
ice. Think of what it means to future generations to 
have a million of the choicest Englishmen, a million 
of the choicest Frenchmen, and a million of the choic- 
est Germans slain or incapacitated in four years! The 
world can never recover from that loss; think not 
only what they would mean to science, art, industry, 
and government if they had lived, but what their 
descendants would mean through the ages! “Wars 
are not paid for in war time, the bill comes later,” 
said Benjamin Franklin. If there is anything in the 
claim for Nordic mental superiority it is to be noted 
that the British, the northern French, the Belgian, 
the German, and many of the United States troops 
were of Nordic descent. 

Another fact to be considered was that the loss 
was almost entirely from the white race. This was a 
white man’s war, for the nerves of the other races 
could not stand the strain. The British tried Indian 
troops—but had to withdraw them; the French had 
some colored fighters, and so did the United States, 
but some of these fled in panic and had to be with- 
drawn. In most instances troops other than the whites 
were used as labor battalions, and consequently were 
endangered little if at all. If the white race is to main- 
tain supremacy, it can ill afford the loss of either the 


149 


MIND: ITS ORIGIN AND GOAL 


quantity or the quality of its breeding stock, such as 
it sacrificed in the last war. Moreover, what is true 
of the last war is equally true of other wars, though 
on a lesser scale. The Civil War in the United States, 
the War of the Roses and other civil wars in England, 
the Thirty Years’ War, and many similar wars 
drained the best blood of the nations which contained 
human stock of superior quality. 

If the scourge of war has been so disastrous in the 
past, what of the future? According to the reports 
concerning preparations in progress when the Ar- 
mistice was signed in 1918, the terrors of the war as 
it was fought were mild compared with what would 
have happened if hostilities had continued six months 
longer. The impetus given by the late war to research 
along destructive lines evidently stimulated scientists 
to still greater effort. Especially is this true of the 
chemists and biologists, who have promised us 
methods of destruction for future wars compared 
with which anything known in the past would look 
insignificant and impotent. This destruction will not 
be confined to armies; but will be directed against 
nations in such a way that entire cities, men, women, 
and children, will be exterminated in a brief attack. 
It seems too horrible to contemplate; but we must re- 
member that in the late war whole nations were 
mobilized, women in the munition factories as well 
as men in the trenches: the work of the one was as 


150 


DANGERS OF INTELLECTUAL DECLINE 


important as that of the other, and the destruction of 
one was as significant as that of the other. The Ger- 
mans adopted the idea of hostilities against civilians 
in their air raids on England, and we have seen that 
a nation in its extremity will stop at nothing. A future 
war is a greater threat to our breeding-stock than 
any past one has been, and it is a sad commentary 
on our intelligence even to admit the possibility of 
such a thing. Is it not time that our intelligence should 
really direct our instincts? We must recognize that 
any future war will be very little less destructive to 
the victor than to the vanquished. When the time 
comes that we shall use the energy now wasted in con- 
flict to improve the race, a day of hope for intellectual 
development will have arrived. 

During the Middle Ages a mistaken Christian re- 
ligion vied with war in the elimination of the best— 
at least as far as their influence on posterity through 
heredity was concerned. Any person of gentle nature, 
overflowing with altruism, of high intelligence, male 
or female, was sure to be appropriated by the church 
to its use. That meant, at that time, celibacy, and the 
absence of offspring. Viewed from the comparison of 
the celibates in the church today with the total popu- 
lation, this does not seem alarming; but in the Middle 
Ages conditions were different. For example, in the 
comparatively small population in Europe and 
around the Mediterranean, it is said that the Bene- 


151 


MIND: ITS ORIGIN AND GOAL 


dictine order alone had not less than thirty-seven 
thousand monasteries, beside which there were mon- 
asteries of numerous other orders. This, however, was 
not all. The most fearless and the keenest thinkers, 
those who were the truth-seekers, the type of men 
who have brought fame and honor to modern science 
in recent years, were almost sure to antagonize the 
church and end their lives at the stake. Those whose 
attenuated morality and intelligence would permit 
them to subscribe to any creed, so long as such sub- 
scription would save their lives, were perfectly secure 
and lived to produce progeny; it was the intellec- 
tually alert and active who met an early death. While 
death at the stake is happily past, the Roman Catholic 
Church still withdraws a number of its ablest adher- 
ents from the ranks of parenthood, but does not curb 
the privilege among its adherents of lowest mentality. 
It is estimated that at the present time the Roman 
Catholic Church has one and one-half million per- 
sons vowed to celibacy. 

Modern economic and industrial conditions might 
also be cited, in passing, as an influence toward 
celibacy. A vast number of young women in our 
times, who choose business or professional careers, 
are less inclined toward domestic life, if they are not 
thereby unfitted for it. Just as one example let us 
note that there are in this country nearly seven hun- 


152 


DANGERS OF INTELLECTUAL DECLINE 


dred thousand female school teachers, many of whom 
will never marry. 

2. While war is busy destroying our best stock, 
modern civilization with mistaken ideas of altruism, 
philanthropy, and sentimentalism is just as busy pre- 
serving our worst, and it is difficult to determine 
which is the more disastrous. Nature may seem to be 
ruthless, but after millions of years of experience she 
has learned wisdom. She has her own ways of punish- 
ing mistakes, and when she has decided that she has 
had enough of a certain individual or of a certain 
stock, if left to herself it does not take long for her 
to get rid of it. With her purposes and ideas modern 
philanthropy has interfered. Our primitive ancestors 
seem cruel to the sentimentalist of today in causing 
the death by exposure, or by other means, of unfit 
babies immediately after birth; but that kept the 
race strong. It is true that the unfitness which they 
observed would naturally be physical, but the very 
conditions of primitive society would tend to elimi- 
nate the feeble-minded and the insane when they 
existed. There was and could be no provision for their 
care, and wandering off by themselves and unable 
to care for themselves they met death from exposure 
and from wild beasts. 

Today we care for our unfit of all kinds, care for 
them much better in many cases than we do for the 
fit who might add much to our civilization and to 


153 


MIND: ITS ORIGIN AND GOAL 


our race. In our schools and colleges, three-quarters 
of a teacher’s or a professor’s time is devoted to the 
least intelligent one-tenth of the class. This is taken 
now as a matter of course. Parents who should expect 
that children brought into the world might have diffi- 
culty in getting along, do not now give it a thought, 
as they know that someone will care for, feed, and 
educate them. Parental responsibility is almost en- 
tirely lifted. This is no suggestion that the mentally 
unfit should not be cared for; the trouble is that in 
one particular they are not sufficiently cared for, and 
they are permitted to breed indiscriminately, and in 
some places and in some cases the increase of feeble- 
minded is noticeable. Take such an example as Nova 
Scotia, where the proportion of Nordic stock is 
greater than in any other place of equal size in Amer- 
ica, and the scholastic records of whose students in 
United States universities show the high mental char- 
acter of its natives. Practically nothing has been done 
for the segregation of the feeble-minded into institu- 
tions, except in the case of idiots and low-grade im- 
beciles; and families comparable to the Jukes and 
Kallikaks are to be found. 

The feeble-minded can largely be eliminated in a 
generation when we really decide to do so, for he- 
redity is the chief factor in the cause of this form 
of degeneracy. Whenever sterilization is proposed, 
there is the same kind of an outcry as is commonly 


154 


DANGERS OF INTELLECTUAL DECLINE 


made by vivisectionists who allow maudlin sentiment 
to overcome reason. Marriage of feeble-minded is 
prohibited in some places, but this is not a deterrent, 
for illegitimacy is most common in such cases. With- 
out disturbing the sentimental ideas of impractical 
idealists, the proper course is to segregate all feeble- 
minded, give them careful supervision, especially 
the women during the childbearing period, and the 
problem will become increasingly less. It is probable 
that entire elimination can never take place, for the 
ranks are always being recruited by accident, disease, 
and obscure causes; but modern science is con- 
tributing to further elimination of cases caused by 
disease, as is shown by the recent work with endo- 
crine glands. This is well, and seems partially to 
neutralize the eugenic damage done by modern medi- 
cine in keeping alive numerous unfit individuals to 
become parents. Considerable work along this line 
has already been done, and there is no reason why 
this factor in mental degeneration should not be 
lessened as fast as science can show us the way. 

Our defective laws are having somewhat the 
same effect as our philanthropic customs and institu- 
tions. Many of our criminals are mentally defective, 
and most of them are between twenty and thirty 
years of age. Not a few have police and prison rec- 
ords, yet, notwithstanding the fact that they are 
known as habitual criminals, they continue to go the 


155 


MIND: ITS ORIGIN AND GOAL 


rounds of the police courts and jails, with liberty in 
between sentences for procreating their kind. Their 
very records show mental and moral defects, which 
justify continual detention, and such detention would 
prevent their leaving offspring to take their places as 
burdens on society. 

3. There is only one way to produce brains and 
that is to breed them! We cannot develop them from 
non-brains, nor can we hope by process of education 
or training to increase potential mentality, which 
seems to be a fixed quantity; we must get brains from 
brainy parentage. Of course we have known this in 
a general way for a long time, but we dislike to admit 
it and to fashion our program upon it. We have been 
careful to breed animals upon this principle. There 
has been no improvement in the human race, during 
historic times, in any way comparable to that in do- 
mestic animals; yet there is every reason to think 
that an equally great improvement were possible, if 
selective breeding had been tried. If a Martian trav- 
eller should visit this planet and get a comprehensive 
view of our life, I can imagine the first observation he 
would make, with uplifted hands and horror-stricken 
face, would be, “You’re breeding out your brains! 
you’re breeding out your brains!” 

What is meant by such a statement? Simply this: 
our brainy people are not producing sufficient chil- 
dren to take their places, while the mentally inferior 

156 


DANGERS OF INTELLECTUAL DECLINE 


are producing far more than enough to fill their 
places—we are getting our population from the men- 
tally inferior. If civilization is to endure, it will be 
necessary for the world to produce a fair proportion 
of individuals of such mental ability as to be able 
to assimilate our social inheritance—the culture 
transmitted to us by our ancestors—and further to 
develop and to improve it. A recent investigation 
shows that Harvard graduates average only seven- 
tenths of one son, and Vassar graduates one-half of 
a daughter. One thousand of the leading scientists 
in America will have only three hundred and fifty 
grandsons to marry. Let me take an example nearer 
home. The faculty of Colgate University numbers 
sixty. These men average eight-elevenths of a son 
and their wives average three-fifths of one daughter. 
I mention this not because it is extraordinary, but 
because it is typical. About four per cent of the young 
people of higher mentality are to be found in the stu- 
dent bodies of our colleges and universities; perhaps 
a smaller proportion of older people of high mentality 
will likely be found to be college graduates. It is not 
unlikely that the average number of children of the 
one hundred per cent of this class will not much, if 
any, exceed that of our college graduates and facul- 
ties. The tendency is for those who, by mental supe- 
riority, make a success of life, to send their children 
to college, and consequently practically all the off- 


157 


MIND: ITS ORIGIN AND GOAL 


spring of superior mentality gravitate toward the 
colleges. If this condition of small families applied 
only to college graduates and not to others of high 
mentality, the result would eventually be the same. 
One advantage of a coeducational college, from the 
standpoint of eugenics, is that it serves as a matri- 
monial bureau for the mentally superior. 

Brigham has analyzed the results of the army tests 
from the standpoint of racial groups as applied to 
immigration. He shows most conclusively that the 
immigration for the last thirty years has been of a 
distinctly lower mental quality, not only than that of 
former immigrants but than that of our average in- 
telligence, and sounds a clear note of warning. It is 
from the recent immigration class that we are getting 
our large families and our future population, and 
thereby lowering our general level of intelligence. A 
similar condition is found in England. There, one- 
quarter of the population, and that quarter the poor- 
est endowed mentally, is producing one-half the chil- 
dren, and statistics show that forty per cent of the 
population of England and Wales is defective in some 
way. If parents of low mentality did not have large 
families, though it might raise the general average of 
intelligence, it would not produce high intelligence. 
That can come only from the parents of high intelli- 
gence, and the responsibility still rests upon them— 
we can derive brains only from brains! 

158 


DANGERS OF INTELLECTUAL DECLINE 


Our boys and girls graduate from college now at an 
average age of twenty-two; we must get them 
through at twenty. This can be done by our applying 
educational knowledge to rearrange our curricula, 
and not lose a bit of knowledge or training in the 
process. Our educational conservatism has prevented 
us from making changes which we know should be 
made. We can eliminate the eighth grade, which is 
principally a year of review; we can postpone our 
mathematics to a later period in our course, so that 
work which now requires a year can be done in a few 
weeks; we can start our languages when nature in- 
tended that they should be started and when she will 
help, instead of working against nature by starting 
in later years, and start with the spoken language 
as nature intended we should; we can adopt the 
metric system of notation instead of our present mess 
of tables which children find so difficult, and which 
many never can learn. The adoption of the metric 
system would also do away with common fractions 
in favor of decimals; nature provided us with the 
foundation of decimals when we were furnished with 
ten fingers. Simplified spelling might also help, if we 
should ever again pay any attention to spelling. 
There are two years saved already, and the boy is 
ready for college at sixteen, instead of at eighteen. 

At present the average boy gets through college at 
twenty-two; if he is studying medicine, he gets 

159 


MIND: ITS ORIGIN AND GOAL 


through medical school at twenty-six; then one or 
two years in a hospital—twenty-eight; then perhaps 
a specialty. He starts to practise at from twenty- 
eight to thirty, and it is three or four years before he 
is able to marry. That is, he marries at thirty-one to 
thirty-five years of age. The lawyer may be a little 
better off, but usually for the first five years of his 
practice his legal wit is used to discover means 
whereby the office furniture can be kept out of the 
hands of a long-suffering landlord. 

Late marriages are the bane of the professional 
class and the peril of our race. It is obvious that a 
groom of thirty-five will probably have a bride of 
thirty or over. Both men and women of thirty and 
over are somewhat critical, and love does not loom 
so large in the program as financial considerations, 
social position, and personal comfort. Children are 
more in the way; habits are fixed at thirty, and it is 
practically impossible to have them rearranged to 
accommodate an unaccommodating baby. It is diffi- 
cult for parents of thirty-five to train a child; and, 
more serious than that, it is extremely difficult for a 
baby to train thirty-five year old parents. It is easy 
to see that one child would be enough under such 
circumstances, and perhaps none at all would be more 
welcome. It was noted by some investigator, not long 
ago, that eminent men were the sons of old fathers. 
At first it was thought that the age of the father was 


160 


DANGERS OF INTELLECTUAL DECLINE 


a determining factor in the ability of the son, but 
later it was found it simply meant that men of ability 
tended to marry late, and consequently could not 
have offspring until a comparatively late age. 

Nature never intended people to marry at thirty- 
five. Marrying is romance—a great adventure—and 
neither romance nor adventure flourishes at thirty- 
five. The early twenties are Nature’s maximum. Up 
to that time love does count, romance is in flower, ad- 
venture is the spice of life—we are all willing to take 
a chance, especially in matrimony. Then we do not 
demand financial or social position, and comfort is 
a secondary consideration. Certain colleges expel stu- 
dents who marry during their undergraduate courses, 
but it is not such marriages which are here being ad- 
vocated. 

These two years which we must save will not per- 
mit professional men and women to marry in their 
early twenties perhaps, but they will help and help 
a great deal. Many of our college graduates are now 
going into business. If the young man can start his 
business training and career at twenty, he should be 
able to marry at twenty-four or twenty-five. Many 
other college men are now adopting the profession of 
teaching; starting in at this work at twenty should 
enable the young man to marry even younger than 
the business man. Ministers have a better chance of 
marrying early than lawyers, for while their profes- 


161 


MIND: ITS ORIGIN AND GOAL 


sional course is the same length, they more quickly 
receive an income on which they can support a wife, 
and there is frequently an empty parsonage inviting 
a bride. 

President Roosevelt had much to say about “race 
suicide,” and advocated large families. Race suicide 
is most likely to come by indiscriminately large fami- 
lies—large families among those who should not 
have them, and small families among the mentally 
fit. If President Roosevelt were living today I believe 
he would sound a clarion call to the professional 
classes and college graduates—indeed his message 
was then intended for such—to produce their kind 
and save the nation. It seems altogether unlikely that 
this nation will be able to fulfil the high destiny 
toward which it is to be directed unless we produce 
the brains necessary to accomplish the task. 

There are certain denominations (or one at least) 
which have always advocated large families. The un- 
proclaimed theory was that the way to increase the 
size of the particular denomination was to increase 
the size of the families of the denomination. Undoubt- 
edly this teaching has had an effect. What is the con- 
dition now? It is that large families are the rule 
among those of low mentality, but the parishioners 
of higher mentality have defied the church and 
limited the number in their families. Modern science 
should teach the denomination as well as the nation 


162 


DANGERS OF INTELLECTUAL DECLINE 


that no gain can come, except in numbers and sub- 
serviency, from the present methods, and that a new 
doctrine must be preached—that of limiting the 
families of the mentally inferior and encouraging in 
every way possible the size of the families of the 
mentally superior. 

If Pearl’s calculations are correct, that the maxi- 
mum population of the United States will be 197,- 
000,000, which will be reached in 2100, it behooves 
us to be careful. The children of today will decide the 
quality of these few generations of the next century 
and three-quarters, and it should be realized that at 
the present rate of increase (or decrease) twenty 
Harvard graduates of today will have only one de- 
scendant at that time. 


163 


CHAPTER X 


ARE WEIN DANGER OF INTELLECTUAL 
DECLINE? (Continued) 


4. Henry Fairfield Osborn has made a statement 
which challenges our attention even in a day when 
startling statements are being continually made: “If 
I were asked: What is the greatest danger which 
threatens the American Republic today? I would 
certainly reply: The gradual dying out among our 
people of those hereditary traits through which the 
principles of our religious, political, and social foun- 
dations were laid down, and their invidious replace- 
ment by traits of less noble character.” He sees as 
with the eye of a prophet, but really by means of 
scientific deduction, the gradual replacing of the 
original American stock with a combination of the 
other races of the world and the various branches of 
the white race, until the great ideals and hopes with 
which this nation was started have been changed to 
give way to ideals of other and lower races, as the 
blood of the black, brown, yellow, and red races are 
mixed with the white race where the Eastern and 
Southern Europeans predominate, and the resultant 
is a combination of the lowest qualities of each. He 
is looking forward to the time when the melting-pot 
will have done its perfect work. 

164 


DANGERS OF INTELLECTUAL DECLINE 


Certain studies which have recently been com- 
pleted, although of a somewhat varied nature, con- 
verge on the subject of our racial character and pros- 
pect, and unfold to us some serious problems of which 
we have formerly been in innocent ignorance. But 
now the handwriting is so plainly etched upon our 
walls that to ignore the warning would condemn us 
as not only mildly indifferent but as criminally negli- 
gent, for if signs can be read aright we are rushing 
madly on to race suicide and extinction, so far as this 
continent is concerned. With our race will inevitably 
go our civilization. Of course there are many who 
refuse to be alarmed and sit calmly by, even as they 
did in the decadence of Egypt, Greece, and Rome, 
not comprehending and apparently not caring what 
fate awaits their race and their nation. 

Madison Grant says: “Democratic ideals among 
our homogeneous population of Nordic blood, as in 
England or America, is one thing, but it is quite an- 
other for the white man to share his blood with or 
trust his ideals to brown, yellow, black, or red men. 
This is suicide, pure and simple, and the first victim 
of this amazing folly will be the white man himself.” 

It is a matter of note that the Japanese are increas- 
ing very rapidly on our western coast, that Indian 
blood is not becoming extinct but is mixing with both 
negroes and whites, and that the negroes are becom- 
ing increasingly lighter in color. Probably there is not 

165 


MIND: ITS ORIGIN AND GOAL 


a pure blooded negro in America, and the number of 
mulattoes increased from one hundred and twenty-six 
per thousand in 1850 to two hundred and eighty-four 
per thousand in 1910. The census of 1920 showed a 
decreased percentage of mulattoes, due, it is sup- 
posed, to the fact that negro enumerators were used 
in 1910, and white enumerators in 1920. The negroes 
form ten per cent of our population and are moving 
north and west where the mixture with the whites is 
much more rapid than in the South. These facts 
should make us think, but my emphasis is not on the 
other races, but on the danger which the “melting- 
pot” brings to the nation on account of the breeding 
out of the higher divisions of the white race and the 
breeding in of the lower divisions. 

The original settlers of what is now the United 
States were Nordics of the best class, and the early 
immigrants into the country down to 1850 were also 
Nordic. The Germans and Irish who came from 1850 
to 1890 had a smaller proportion of Nordic blood 
than the earliest settlers, but were still sufficiently 
infused with it to prevent the stock from deteriorat- 
ing. From 1890 to the present the great proportion of 
immigrants have been Alpines and the descendants 
of Roman slaves who are to be found in the south of 
Italy, the progenitors of whom were gathered from 
various sources around the Mediterranean, and from 
the nature of the case were of inferior stock. In addi- 

166 


DANGERS OF INTELLECTUAL DECLINE 


tion to these were some Mediterraneans and a few 
Nordics. The great fallacy of the ‘‘melting-pot” was 
that we thought environment played a much larger 
part in life than heredity, and if we could only get 
people here and surround them with proper environ- 
ment,—it mattered not who they were,—they would 
become intellectual, cultured, and moral according to 
our standard. Experience has proved the falsity of 
such a supposition. What this practice of ‘“democ- 
racy,” “equality,” and the “melting-pot,” has accom- 
plished is to permit persons of different races and 
intellectuality to intermarry and to deteriorate our 
stock at an alarming rate. 

The biologist Humphrey says: “Our ‘melting-pot’ 
could not give us in a thousand years what enthusi- 
asts expect of it—a fusing of all our various racial 
elements into a new type which shall be true Ameri- 
can. It will give us for many generations a perplexing 
diversity in ancestry, and since our successors must 
reach back into their ancestry for characteristics, 
this diversity will increase the uncertainty of their 
inheritance. They will inherit no stable, blended char- 
acter, because there is no such thing. They will in- 
herit from a mixture of unlike characteristics con- 
tributed by unlike peoples, and in their inheritance 
they will have certain of these characteristics in full 
identity, while certain others they will not have at 
all.” 


167 


MIND: ITS ORIGIN AND GOAL 


In our thinking we are optimistic; we think of 
a mixture of races as raising the lower race rather 
than as lowering the higher race, and at least as strik- 
ing a mean between the two. Biologists see the matter 
differently. The offspring of a mixture of races tends 
to revert to the ancient and lower type. The charac- 
teristics of the highest races are recent developments 
and, as the last factors in development, are conse- 
quently unstable, and they are the first to disappear. 
A cross between a white and a negro is always a negro 
and never a white. The brunette, which is the lower 
characteristic, is always dominant in a cross. There 
is always a tendency to lower the average in mixing 
races, but to this there are many striking exceptions. 
The various breeds of dogs if allowed to interbreed 
would soon revert to a wolflike animal of a uniform 
type, like the former dogs of Constantinople. Darwin 
noted that cross mating seemed to evoke the original 
characteristics which had been latent but suppressed 
in the pure stock of the parents. ‘Never in the his- 
tory of the world,” says Gould, “has a mongrel peo- 
ple ever attained real prosperity.” The melting-pot 
was supposed to produce a people retaining the best 
qualities of a miscellaneous ancestry; unfortunately 
it does not work that way—the tendency is in the 
opposite direction. 

History has shown us that when two races of dif- 
ferent mentality have lived in intimate contact, the 

168 


DANGERS OF INTELLECTUAL DECLINE 


lower always tends to crowd out the higher. The 
crowding is not by shoving aside so as to force the 
higher to go elsewhere, but the children of the lower 
take the place of the unborn children of the higher. 
The people of the higher race refuse to have their 
children in competition with those of the lower, espe- 
cially as laborers, and only bring as many into the 
world as they can fit to take positions superior to the 
children of the lower race. In Rome the lowest of 
the six classes into which the population was divided 
was called what? Proletarian, that is, producers of 
offspring—not good for anything else and chosen as 
stock from which to breed. Is it any wonder Rome 
fell? In Massachusetts the birth-rate among foreign- 
born women is two and one-half times that among na- 
tive-born, and of the former, Poles, Polish and Rus- 
sian Jews, South Italians, and French Canadians are 
the most prolific—some of the lowest immigrants we 
get. In 1920, in the United States as a whole, of the 
mothers who bore children in that year the Polish and 
Italian had an average of 4.5 children, the German 
4.4, the Austrian 4.3, the Hungarian 4.2, and the 
native United States white 3.0. One thousand Har- 
vard graduates in two hundred years will have fifty 
descendants, while one thousand Roumanians will 
have one hundred thousand, at the present rate of in- 
crease. 

In days gone by when European civilizations were 

169 


MIND: ITS ORIGIN AND GOAL 


threatened, there were hordes, usually strong Nordic 
hordes from Northern Europe, on the borders, led 
by adventurous kings or generals, ready to come in 
and assume the burden. But today there is no hope of 
that. We must either build up from our own resources 
and conserve our race power, or else we must admit 
only such immigrants as shall strengthen and not 
weaken our race, or both. One thing, however, must 
be basic—we must be deluded no longer by figures of 
speech like “equality” and “the melting-pot.” The 
iron law of nature, which cannot be changed, is the 
law of inequality; and the “‘melting-pot” is destructive 
to our race. If we are to keep up our stock we must 
select our breeders. Immigration is the keynote of the 
solution of our problem; whether or not the original 
Nordic stock in our population will retain its present 
proportion depends upon the mentality of the rest 
of our stock. The truth is that recent immigrants, on 
account of the ease of transportation and the desire 
to escape military service, are in deep contrast to the 
adventurers of former days. While we have for years 
guessed something concerning the mentality of the 
different racial groups, the mental tests made during 
the war have given us a standard of measurement, 
which all criticism has failed to discredit. Brigham’s 
A Study of American Intelligence, founded on these 
tests, is very illuminating. Taking first the three 
great divisions of the white race, he found the men- 


170 


DANGERS OF INTELLECTUAL DECLINE 


tality averages on the combined scale to be: Nordic 
13.28, Alpines 11.67, Mediterranean 11.43; and all 
methods of testing give the same result, which is in 
accord with other investigators and authorities on 
the subject. In the net immigration from 1908-1912, 
Alpines formed fifty per cent, Nordics twenty-three 
per cent, and Mediterraneans twenty per cent. Immi- 
grants from certain countries in order of intelligence, 
compared with the native United States population, 
are as follows: England (14.87), Scotland (14.34), 
Holland (14.32), Germany (13.88), United States 
white (13.77), Denmark (13.69), Canada (13.66), 
Sweden (13.30), Norway (12.98), Belgium (12.79), 
Ireland (12.32), Austria (12.27), Turkey (12.02), 
Greece (11.90), Russia (11.34), Italy (11.01), 
Poland (10.74), United States colored (10.70). The 
figures are those of the combined scale, being little 
different from the mental age; the order is the same. 
There are no data by which the intelligence levels of 
the different races which stay in their native countries 
can be compared. The available data are for emi- 
grants only, and they are a selected class. They are 
not the lowest, for the feeble-minded are not sup- 
posed to be permitted to enter the United States, nor 
are they probably the highest intellectual class. At 
least they show some initiative. While nationalities, 
in toto, cannot be justly compared from this data, 


171 


MIND: ITS ORIGIN AND GOAL 


but only their emigrants, so far as the problem for 
the United States is concerned the result is the same. 

The conclusion of the study is based upon our 
latest scientific data. The average intelligence of our 
immigrants is declining. At the time of the passing 
of the Quota Act of 1921, seventy to seventy-five 
per cent of the total immigration was Alpine or 
Mediterranean. About three hundred and fifty out 
of every one thousand of the Alpine and Mediter- 
ranean types are below the average negro. The pro- 
portions admissible under the Quota Act of 1921 
were 35 per cent Nordic, 65 per cent Alpine and 
Mediterranean. Since 1901, almost ten million Al- 
pine and Mediterranean types have come here and, 
allowing for returns, would give us two million immi- 
grants below the average negro. If in America we 
look forward to the intermingling of all the types, in- 
cluding the negro, a prospect which seems most 
likely, the outlook for intelligence is not encouraging. 
The 1920 census shows seven million of mixed native 
and foreign parentage. 

So far we have been dealing with the averages of 
different groups of people, and if the selection is to 
be by groups this is well and good. Probably the 
more fair and more valuable discrimination would 
be by individual valuation. No one would contend 
that all Poles are very little higher in intelligence than 
the average negro, or that all Englishmen are su- 


172 


DANGERS OF INTELLECTUAL DECLINE 


perior to all individuals of other nationalities; in 
truth, we find wide variations of intelligence in every 
group. Occasionally we find a pure-bred negro direct 
from Africa, where there was no possibility of the ad- 
mixture of other blood in his veins, of high intelli- 
gence. The Maori children, of New Zealand, have 
shown ability in the schools of the dominion, some of 
the pupils doing as well as some of the white children; 
American college classes not infrequently contain 
one member of a supposedly inferior race, who is 
carrying his work well. 

But we have recently had evidence from another 
source, in an approach to the problem from another 
angle. The statement of Dr. H. H. Laughlin before 
the Committee on Immigration and Naturalization 
of the House of Representatives is enlightening. In 
regard to feeble-mindedness, against which our laws 
are so stringent, it is found that in institutions for the 
care of the feeble-minded, thirty-one per cent in pro- 
portion to the population are immigrants, when if 
the law had been enforced it would be zero; native 
white children, with one parent foreign, exceed their 
proportion by ninety per cent, and native white chil- 
dren, with both parents foreign, exceed their propor- 
tion seventy-five per cent. That is, even when the 
immigrants are not defective they carry the taint. In 
insanity the foreign-born exceed their proportion 
ninety-three per cent. In all types of social inade- 


173 


MIND: ITS ORIGIN AND GOAL 


quacy the foreign-born exceed their proportion by 
forty per cent. In conversation recently, a man who 
has had wide and successful experience as the super- 
intendent of an institution for abnormal persons 
said that when he began his work, perhaps thirty 
years ago, he received many tall, light-haired cases of 
dementia, but now he gets a much larger proportion 
of cases of small, dark-haired amentia. These social 
inadequates cost the people of the United States one 
hundred million dollars annually, beside economic 
and social drag and racial degeneration. While it is 
true that we do not know all about the science of 
race betterment, we do know enough to make a sure 
start. We know the cost of caring for the socially in- 
adequate, and we know that “a single genius is worth 
more than a dozen gold mines.” Putting it on the 
lowest basis, that of finance, it pays to breed from the 
best and to eliminate the weak. Mentality is the only 
real wealth. A nation’s strength is tested, not by num- 
bers, but by the proportion of people of ability which 
it contains. Darwin said: “It is very difficult to say 
why one civilized nation rises, becomes more power- 
ful, and spreads more widely than another; or why 
the same nation progresses more quickly at one time 
than at another. We can only say that it depends on 
an increase in the actual number of the population, 
on the number of the men endowed with high in- 
tellectual and moral faculties, as well as on their 


174 


DANGERS OF INTELLECTUAL DECLINE 


standard of excellence. Corporeal structure appears 
to have little influence, except so far as the vigor of 
body leads to vigor of mind.” Louis Pasteur was but 
one of millions of Frenchmen, yet, as Huxley points 
out, his mind sufficed to pay the total indemnity de- 
manded as a result of the Franco-Prussian war. He 
was worth a host of ordinary soldiers. The intellectual 
supremacy of Athens was due to the good stock of 
its inhabitants and to the high grade of immigration 
attracted there. The whole advancement of the 
world has depended upon the ability of a compara- 
tively few great minds, and these can be obtained 
only by breeding them. Many intellectual families 
and notable mutations have been lost to the human 
race because it was not thought necessary to conserve 
them. There have been, however, some outstanding 
examples of selective breeding. The father of Simon 
Newcomb, the noted mathematician and astronomer, 
is said to have hunted through the whole province of 
Nova Scotia, a land where good stock is not rare, 
looking for a suitable wife. Gould says, ‘“‘A pint can 
never be educated to hold more than a pint.” It may 
be put in an environment where it will be more use- 
ful, but never will it develop more capacity. Mental 
superiority is much more recent than physical and 
much more unstable; high intelligence is a recent 
trait and is comparatively rare. We have spent more 
effort to keep the race stupid than to make it intelli- 


175 


MIND: ITS ORIGIN AND GOAL 


gent, and now we are dissipating what intelligence we 
have. 

The fall of Rome and the Civil War in this country 
do not seem to have taught us much, for we still be- 
lieve in importing slaves. Of course we do not call 
them by that name, but it means a demand for cheap 
labor which shall do our bidding in a docile manner, 
regardless of what effect it shall have on our race 
future. The ten million negroes in this country look 
us in the face in vain. Gould says: “Our importation 
of multitudes of ignorant and utterly alien laborers 
will, among other calamities to our body politic, de- 
grade it. But while we should be warned in time and 
take proper measures to control this evil, and do so 
instantly, our position is still strong, for there are yet 
left in America fifty million people the greater part 
of whom can trace their ancestry to Colonial days 
before pollution began, and it behooves us to dis- 
regard every temptation, whether it be the thread- 
bare plea of the need for cheap labor to develop our 
great resources, or the equally threadbare sentimen- 
tality which urges us to destroy ourselves under the 
specious and false assurance that out of mongrelism 
will arise perhaps some thousands of years hence a 
better strain. The labor thus imported will prove the 
most expensive ever employed, for we shall pay its 
wages in our race life’s blood. The promised elevation 
or uplift of the world shall merely result in our own 

176 


DANGERS OF INTELLECTUAL DECLINE 


degradation, for we will open Pandora’s box and 
when its untold evils have rushed out and become 
wide-spread, happy indeed shall we be if, like Pan- 
dora, we have still left with us hope.” 

The recent immigration bill has helped the matter, 
but it has not entirely cured it. According to the 
Quota Act of 1921, amended in 1922, there were to be 
admitted three per cent of the natives of any country 
residing in the United States, according to the census 
of 1910. The Selective Immigration Act of 1924 re- 
duced the percentage from three to two, plus one 
hundred, from each country, the determining census 
to be, not that of 1910 but that of 1890. This means 
not only a decreasing immigration but a far greater 
proportion of Northern European immigrants and a 
far smaller proportion of Southern Europeans. If il- 
licit immigration can be prevented, this should pro- 
duce a vast improvement over any previous condi- 
tion. The act itself, founded on the latest results of 
scientific investigation, is worthy of all praise. 

No better example of what has happened can be 
found than in comparison of New England of today 
with the New England of fifty to seventy-five years 
ago. Undoubtedly we must have work accomplished 
if industry is to be continued, but Nordic brains 
will not only invent machines to do the work, but will 
run the machines after they are built. As machines 
took the place of black slave labor, so they must take 


177 


MIND: ITS ORIGIN AND GOAL 


the place of modern slave labor. These words come 
from one who has little sympathy with the conduct 
of certain labor unions, and yet to solve the problem 
by destroying our race through unwise importations 
of low grade labor is too great a price to pay for a 
temporary solution. 

5. A danger which is as yet indefinite, but is loom- 
ing up in a menacing way is that we are loading the 
machine heavier than the power can stand. We have 
too many tools and not enough steam. To repeat the 
language already used, our social inheritance is in- 
creasing so rapidly and our biological inheritance so 
slowly that the former is making too great demands 
upon the latter. The complexity and demands of mod- 
ern civilization are rapidly becoming too much for 
our brain power. If we compare the complexity of 
modern life, with its forced speed and insistent tasks, 
with the life of the Greeks, and then consider that 
all this must be accomplished with the same intel- 
lectual ability, we can better understand what the 
strain must be. In the matter of education we have 
advanced (I trust it is advancement) far beyond the 
three Rs, and the confusing multiplicity of subjects 
in our high schools and colleges is a constant matter 
for criticism. 

If a telephone exchange has one hundred lines con- 
nected with it, and one more be added, the resulting 
addition to the possible combination of calls is more 

178 


DANGERS OF INTELLECTUAL DECLINE 


than two one-hundredths, not one one-hundredth. So 
every new discovery, every new invention, every new 
device does not add simply one more, but a vastly 
greater complexity and confusion. When the internal 
combustion engine was discovered we greeted it 
merely aS one more invention; but among other 
things resulting from it is the automobile, and there 
is practically not a thing connected with modern 
civilization which the automobile does not affect. In 
thirty years it has revolutionized the world. The 
printing press, the moving picture, the radio, and 
numerous other additions to our civilization are each 
giving the old world a turn until we are literally in a 
whirl. We have welcomed every new discovery and 
have hoped that we might live sufficiently long to 
see many more; but with the rapidity with which 
they are coming, how long can we endure? 

In the forty years between 1880 and 1920, the 
population of the United States increased one hun- 
dred and eleven per cent, but the number of persons 
in our insane asylums increased four hundred and 
sixty-nine per cent. According to available statistics 
there were, in 1890, one hundred and seventy cases 
of insanity to every ten thousand of the population, 
two hundred and four in 1910, and two hundred and 
twenty in 1920. The record was even more dis- 
couraging in New York State, where, in 1920, there 
were three hundred and seventy-four insane to every 


179 


MIND: ITS ORIGIN AND GOAL 


ten thousand of the population. These figures do not 
include epileptics or feeble-minded, but if these 
were included these numbers would have to be in- 
creased threefold. Allowing for greater efficiency in 
diagnosis, it is estimated that our insane population 
has more than doubled in forty years, and that at a 
time when curative methods for mental diseases have 
been more successfully applied than at any previous 
time in history. 

We speak of today as the day of specialists, and 
why? Because the human mind cannot grasp a whole 
subject; it has not the power and can only touch the 
fringes of one side of it. Will the time not come when 
we shall be unable to adjust ourselves to the things 
necessary for life, and when even a specialization 
will not be sufficient to meet our needs? Wagner’s 
call to the simple life made an appeal for a few days, 
but was eclipsed by the next sensation. With frazzled 
nerves, sensations must increase to give the same 
effect, and by a pathological circle the increased sen- 
sation tires out wearied nerves even more. The in- 
sanity, referred to above, which shows itself in the 
second generation of our immigrants, though not ap- 
parent in their fathers when they arrived, is evidently 
due to a strain which the mind could not bear. In the 
increased demand for psychiatrists, it appears that 
more careful diagnosis does not account for the need. 
Given enough time, the mind would undoubtedly ad- 


180 


DANGERS OF INTELLECTUAL DECLINE 


just itself to new conditions, but with the bewildering 
rapidity of the change of mental environment, the 
danger is that the mind cannot adjust itself in time. 

6. The last danger to which I wish to call attention 
is one emphasized by Patrick. It is that the comfort 
and ease and time-saving devices of our modern life 
will result in degeneracy. The race rose to its present 
high status through struggle and strife. This is also 
the golden road to success for the individual. In the 
discussion of the theory of recapitulation it was 
pointed out that the individual must copy the race in 
the strenuous muscular work of early years in order 
to be in a position where the mind can develop prop- 
erly when adolescence comes. Except to say that the 
race has so developed, we do not know why there is 
such an intimate relation between the development of 
the muscular system and the mental development. 

The modern demands upon the mind have just 
been alluded to; in connection with this we should 
recognize the decreasing demands upon the muscles. 
With the overwhelming avalanche of automobiles 
which meets one at every turn, people are in danger 
of losing the use of their legs. Students in high schools 
and colleges must have cars to enable them to go to 
classes, business and professional men must be driven 
to their offices where they sit in comfortable chairs 
all day; women as well as men are addicted to lack 
of muscular work. Every conceivable form of labor- 

181 


MIND: ITS ORIGIN AND GOAL 


saving device attracts the flabby moderner, and time- 
saving devices are constantly employed in order that 
we may have more time to take our ease. 

‘‘A strong race is a resistant, not a protected race.” 
The great victories of modern science have been those 
largely of protection rather than of resistance, which 
means eventually that the race is being weakened. 
The process of resistance is fatal to the weak for it 
means their elimination, but it is nature’s method. 
For example, the negro race is resistant when exposed 
to malaria, but to obtain this privilege it has meant 
at some time the elimination of all members of the 
race susceptible to the germ. The white race, never 
having gone through this process, has to be protected. 
Nature’s method of immunity to certain so-called 
children’s diseases is to strengthen the system so as 
to resist the disease germs in the future. It seems that 
it might be possible to strengthen the constitutional 
resistance of the race against all diseases, but it would 
mean the sacrifice of a multitude of individuals who 
are now Craving protection. Pearson has shown that 
the death rate from tuberculosis was falling more 
rapidly before the campaign was begun against it 
than it has since. In 1911 he predicted that the death 
rate would again rise, notwithstanding the preventive 
measures in use, and in 1918 this took place in Eng- 
land. The preventive measures have saved some lives, 
but have weakened the racial resistance by keeping 


182 


DANGERS OF INTELLECTUAL DECLINE 


alive and breeding from susceptible people. The fu- 
ture generations will probably have to pay the price. 

Developed muscles will not only help to resist 
physical diseases, but this very condition of resist- 
ance will help men mentally. There is also, however, 
a mental resistance as well as a physical, and this is 
necessary to make us strong mentally. James’s advice 
in his famous chapter on Habit is right to the point. 
He said: “Keep the faculty of effort alive in you by 
a little gratuitous exercise every day. That is, be 
systematically ascetic or heroic in little unnecessary 
points, do every day or two something for no other 
reason than that you would rather not do it, so that 
when the hour of dire need draws nigh, it may find 
you not unnerved and untrained to stand the test.” 

The life of physical ease is not conducive to mental 
strenuousness, and as the modern man is finding sub- 
stitutes for walking, he is also looking for substitutes 
for thought. Less and less are his mental recreations 
in the form of physical strenuousness. Less and less do 
men wish to be alone in order to think. They seem to 
be afraid to be alone. In order to be happy we must 
either curb our desires or satisfy them—how few 
strive for the former! Few young people are perma- 
nently at a disadvantage on account of lack of money 
—this apparent disadvantage becomes in the train- 
ing an advantage. Yet we see the modern man making 
every effort to accumulate money, not only for his 

183 


MIND: ITS ORIGIN AND GOAL 


own ease, but in order that his children may be at a 
disadvantage thereby. The whole matter is moral in 
its essence, for, as has already been pointed out, the 
moral is the first to go in any retrogression, and if 
we are to hold our position in civilization this moral 
advantage must be retained. In our strife for ad- 
vancement we must endeavor to make men better 
rather than more comfortable, we must harden rather 
than soften them, we must develop their resistance 
rather than throw around them new privileges, we 
must exercise their powers rather than try to save 
them. Work, struggle, effort—these are the elements 
of progress; ease is the first symptom of decay. We 
have no better example of racial degeneration than 
the tapeworm—all hooks and mouth, and capable of 
using only predigested food. Is the tendency of mod- 
ern Civilization toward this state? In a previous chap- 
ter we have indicated the effect of leisure upon Rome; 
does that mean anything to us, or does history warn 
us in vain? 


184 


CHAPTER XI 


WHAT FUTURE CHANGES MAY WE EXPECT? 


HEN we talk of the future of mentality we 

usually refer to knowledge rather than to 
power, and try to prognosticate or to imagine the 
things we shall know in a thousand or ten thousand 
years. Rarely do we speculate concerning the change 
in mental ability. We have some guide from the won- 
derful development of social inheritance during his- 
toric times, but the entire lack of development of 
biological inheritance in the same time provides little 
as a basis for prophecy. It is in social inheritance that 
acquired characteristics are transmitted, not in bio- 
logical inheritance, and that makes prognostication 
concerning the latter more difficult. Yet it is on ac- 
count of the social inheritance that we can guide 
biological evolution, and by this means have “‘self- 
conscious evolution.” To use another of Hobhouse’s 
phrases, we must insist upon “‘aristogenic evolution.” 
When we do come to the place and time when we 
breed from the best, then the science of eugenics will 
have become established. 

Let us lay aside for the moment the subject of 
physical evolution in our discussion of “the best,” 
and ask what is the best from which we shall breed, 
and for which we shall aim. Let us suppose that we 

185 


MIND: ITS ORIGIN AND GOAL 


choose those who show the highest potential men- 
tality according to their grades in the present or fu- 
ture developed intelligence tests as the parents of the 
future race, would that insure us the results which a 
self-conscious evolution should try to develop? Just 
here is where we should have to be most careful and 
call to our aid the most skilful investigation and sci- 
entific reasoning of which we are capable. We may be 
sure of the opposite thesis; namely, that we should 
eliminate as parents those who make the lowest 
grades in such a test, and I think we should come to 
the conclusion that we should accept those who make 
the highest grades, provided certain other tests which 
we already have or should devise could also be suc- 
cessfully passed. 

There are at least two dangers in specialization, 
one of which has already been noted, and to which 
reference will later be made. It has been noted by 
breeders of highly specialized animals, such as highly 
and finely bred cattle, that they are more susceptible 
to disease than the mongrel or grade animals, and 
that as a rule they cannot endure rough usage or lack 
of care as their more humble fellows can. We have 
noted that the more finely organized and highly de- 
veloped people mentally are more unstable and more 
susceptible to mental disorganization than others. 
The probability then would be, if we bred for pure 
intellectuality without considering other mental 

186 


FUTURE CHANGES 


qualities, that we should develop an unstable race 
abounding more or less in genius. In some tests of 
mental balance which have recently been made, it was 
found that the most intelligent tended to have the 
most symptoms of emotional instability and lack of 
balance. While these tests have not been given to 
enough persons to establish any general law, they 
seemed to indicate an inverse relationship between 
intelligence and balance. 

In our discussion of instinct we saw how those ani- 
mals which took advantage of an early specialization 
in instinct, sacrificed a future higher development 
for the present aid which instinct furnished, and that 
the less highly specialized and more generally de- 
veloped species finally developed more intelligence 
to aid in adjustment, and won out in the contest of 
life. But is the contest finally settled? Might we not 
find that to specialize in intelligence would be to side- 
track future development of another kind and hence 
to lose out in the end? Are we not losing the lesson 
which instinct has taught us and neglecting the warn- 
ing of the danger in specialization? 

If we should breed for intelligence only, and elimi- 
nate all members of the species who did not measure 
up to the highest tests of potential mentality, might 
we not cut off all possibility of a development in the 
race of some mental quality higher than intelligence? 
But can there be anything higher than intelligence? 

187 


MIND: ITS ORIGIN AND GOAL 


At one time in the history of the world we can imagine 
a question, “Could there be anything higher than in- 
stinct? if so, what?” and no answer could then be 
given. May we not be in the same position now when 
we are asked, “What could be higher than intelli- 
gence?” If there is such a thing let us recognize that 
and breed it. 

Genius is not pure intellectuality, perhaps not 
chiefly that. It is difficult to define and more difficult 
to analyze. It exhibits itself in different forms in dif- 
ferent persons. The person whom we think of as a 
genius is not one who simply sits down and reasons 
things out in a purely intellectual way. We hardly 
think of the expert reasoner as a genius. The genius, 
whom we think of as belonging to a higher order than 
that of the ordinary intelligent individual, is one who 
gets the answers without reasoning. I know that in 
reasoning we frequently get the answer, and then 
form the syllogism later, but that is not what is 
meant. The secret of genius seems to be in a particu- 
larly active, nimble, reliable, and productive sub- 
conscious activity. In some cases it seems as if the 
threshold of consciousness is lowered in the genius, 
and the activities which in ordinary people are un- 
conscious or subconscious are in him a definite part 
of consciousness. At any rate this subconscious ac- 
tivity is more rapid, sometimes more accurate, and 
accomplished with far less fatigue than the conscious 

188 


FUTURE CHANGES 


activity, even when the same result is achieved; 
but it is not infrequently capable of doing work and 
of solving problems which the conscious activity has 
already failed in or has not thought possible. Its work 
may be unique. What we call “intuition” is another 
example of the result of similar processes. The ques- 
tion naturally comes to one, Is this not a hint of a fu- 
ture development which would lead the race higher 
than pure intellectuality? 

In hypnotism we frequently have exhibited a 
hypersensibility. The activity of all the senses is 
heightened, and the subject is sometimes able to ac- 
complish extraordinary feats of this character. One 
author opined that a hypnotized person could read 
the common print of a book by its reflection in the 
eye of an operator who was holding the open book 
with its back to the hypnotized subject. So minute 
would such a reflection be that this would undoubt- 
edly be an impossibility, but it goes to show the 
extent of the exaggeration of sensibility which some 
experimenters think possible. We do know that hyp- 
notized persons can hear, see, and feel in a way 
which is not possible for them in their normal condi- 
tion. Can this hypersensibility be developed in nor- 
mal personalities, and if so is this power worth cul- 
tivating? 

It is recognized that keen sensibility is not so 
valuable for the advancement and preservation of the 

189 


MIND: ITS ORIGIN AND GOAL 


species as it was in primitive times, for then life it- 
self depended upon the sensitive nose, the sharp eye, 
and the-keen ear. Until the advent of the automobile 
age the advantage in the struggle for existence de- 
pended less and less upon those activities so valuable 
to primitive man. Now, as he attempts to cross Fifth 
Avenue his life depends upon his quick eye, his keen 
ear, his rapid reaction time, and his nimble leg. A 
sympathetic thought cancels thousands of years, and 
makes his primitive ancestor a true brother in dis- 
tress. It is altogether likely that the sight and hearing 
of the modern man are as keen as those of the early 
members of his race, at least they are equal to those 
of the primitive races existing today. With his finely 
developed hand, modern man is not below primitive 
races in active touch. The one sense which seems to 
have degenerated is that of smell; what we call taste 
has also become less keen, but that is largely smell 
and has deteriorated as smell has. The large broad 
nose, so characteristic of primitive types, has atro- 
phied with disuse, and with the lessening of the physi- 
cal organ has gone also much of the special sense. We 
not infrequently meet those who have an atavistic 
sense of smell, who are able to identify articles be- 
longing to different persons by smell. The blind often 
have this sense abnormally developed. 

While the ancestor of man was yet on all fours, 
this was his most valuable sense; but when he as- 


190 


FUTURE CHANGES 


cended to the trees and later when he stood on his 
hind legs, sight took the place of smell, and the latter 
decreased through disuse. Smell is now more or less 
a vestigial sense and the modern man may be better 
off without it, except in so far as it contributes with 
pressure and temperature to the experience of taste. 
If hypersensibility could be developed, it is most 
likely that the quickening of the senses of sight and 
hearing would be most valuable, and that not only 
on account of what it would mean in itself, but on 
account of the stimulus it would give to quicken men- 
tal reactions. Is not this a possibility for the future 
development of the race? 

Then there seems to be another hint in telepathy. 
Speech has been of wonderful advantage to the hu- 
man race, and has made our social inheritance pos- 
sible; but is there a danger that we are being side- 
tracked, and prevented from developing a higher 
means of communication on account of specializing 
in speech? Even if our verdict concerning telepathy 
is the Scotch one of “not proven,” there is evidently 
a mass of facts looking toward telepathy which our 
ordinary methods of explanation fail to unravel for 
us. Rivers describes how Malaisians carried out 
some collective work without previous arrangements 
and without using spoken words or signs. May there 
not be in this another hint of a future development 


IQI 


MIND: ITS ORIGIN AND GOAL 


toward which the race is tending, and which a breed- 
ing for pure intellectuality would abort? 

It might be questioned by some if in suggesting the 
developing of some factors connected with genius, 
hypnotism, and telepathy we are not taking a back- 
ward rather than a forward step. Do not these sub- 
conscious elements belong to a primitive rather than 
to a developed life? Should we not emphasize the 
intellectual rather than the subconscious factors? 
Several things may be said in answer to this question: 
in the first place, we have only recently come to realize 
how large a part of our present mental life is sub- 
conscious in its action, and how important this part 
is. The illustration of the iceberg is sometimes used 
in this connection, because of the fact that two-thirds 
of its mass is under the surface, as the larger part of 
mental life is subconscious. The subconscious action 
is sometimes more reliable than the conscious, rea- 
soned conclusions. In the second place, it seems as if 
some of this activity which is now subconscious and 
only appears occasionally in genius or telepathy has 
been sidetracked by the specialization of intelligence. 
If this is so, the breeding for and use of these ele- 
ments may well restore a better balanced and more 
efficient mentality. After all, what we are to decide 
is not what is primitive and what is modern, but what 
will be most valuable in the future development of 
the race, since it seems as if the elevation of some of 


192 


FUTURE CHANGES 


these subconscious factors to the conscious plane 
might be of great value to future generations. 

There naturally come to mind various investiga- 
tions and discoveries now being made in the realm of 
what used to be known as abnormal psychology, but 
which we now know to be very normal psychology. 
Has not psychoanalysis, stripped of its theories and 
confined to the results of investigation along this line, 
a few hints for us? Should mental hygiene simply be 
concerned with the elimination of traits and tend- 
encies which seem to be detrimental to efficient men- 
tal work? Should it not also be leading us into the 
realms where the mind shall not only be not deterio- 
rated, but where it shall be improved—should not the 
direction of mental evolution be a distinct and the 
most important part of mental hygiene? It will be 
noticed that we are chiefly concerned now with ask- 
ing questions—some questions containing perhaps 
some suggestions; but what further can we do until 
we organize all our resources in the attempt to solve 
this question of mental evolution, undoubtedly the 
most important question which is clamoring for solu- 
tion today—a question which must be perpetual 
through the ages. 

If there is to be further evolution it is interesting 
for us to speculate as to the exact form which it will 
take. Most of the attention paid to the subject has 
been from the physical standpoint, and our descrip- 


193 


MIND: ITS ORIGIN AND GOAL 


tion of it and attention to it have been almost wholly 
physical. Changes in physical structure have been 
necessitated by adjustment to the environment. This 
is not so necessary now. In prehuman times it was 
necessary, if life were to continue, and this was true 
even in primitive times, when the low form of intelli- 
gence sought to accomplish the same thing. As mental 
power developed there was a change of attitude, and 
now it is the environment which the human mind 
adjusts to its needs. Very early the adjustment of the 
organism was wholly physical; later the necessity 
for this ceased, and it became mental. As far as neces- 
sity for accommodating the individual or the race to 
environment is concerned, physical evolution may 
well have ceased, and we do not look for great physi- 
cal changes in the future. There may be some symp- 
toms to indicate that we shall finally be relieved of 
certain undesirable members which we hope may 
atrophy through disuse—such as the vermiform ap- 
pendix; there are also some indications that we are 
gradually losing some of our lesser toes, and that 
we may follow the lead of the horse and become a 
one-toed species. If this happens we shall probably 
not be any more inconvenienced than is the horse, 
and these changes will not be striking enough to make 
much difference. The muscles of the foot which for- 
merly turned the toes, the now useless muscles of the 
ear, and certain other inherited but now superfluous 


194 


FUTURE CHANGES 


organs may follow in the same way, to the advantage 
of the body as a whole. 

There are some persons who are willing to state 
their belief that not only has physical evolution 
ceased, but that individual mental evolution has 
ceased as well. The arguments used to sustain this 
opinion are not so conclusive. With the rapidly chang- 
ing environment, and the necessity of accommodating 
ourselves to new mental conditions, as well as the 
endeavor to accommodate new mental conditions to 
us, we still need individual mental development. The 
fact that we have seen little evidence of such develop- 
ment in historic times is no argument against its now 
taking place as rapidly as it ever did, which would 
not be sufficiently rapid to show in this compara- 
tively short space of time. We know that individual 
mental evolution has taken place through the ages; 
it is still needed, and consequently there is not the 
same likelihood of a suspension of evolution in this 
form as in the physical. 

If, however, individual mental evolution is finished, 
in what form will evolution show itself? In social 
evolution, say Conklin and others. They opine that 
the race can no longer improve through an indi- 
vidualistic society and that all hope of improvement, 
and hence of evolution, must come about through the 
organization of the individuals. It would mean even- 
tually something similar to an ant or bee colony, 


195 


MIND: ITS ORIGIN AND GOAL 


founded not on instinct as in the case of these insects, 
but on intellect. The fact to which attention has al- 
ready been called, that the moral and religious are the 
highest and latest phases of evolution, proving their 
high place by their instability, lends some color to this 
theory. Moral and religious elements in our per- 
sonalities deal with the relation of persons to each 
other and are consequently social. 

The arguments for the antithesis between the two 
forms of evolution are far from conclusive, and it 
seems reasonable to suppose that the two should 
progress concurrently. For the highest social evolu- 
tion we should need the highest individual develop- 
ment,—the former does not take the place of the lat- 
ter as the mental does of the physical in the matter 
of adjustment. To the contrary, it seems that only 
as we have the highest continued individual de- 
velopment can we have a progressive social develop- 
ment. Those who claim to see the beginnings of a 
social evolution in our present experience, cannot be 
sure that if social development should be the next 
evolutionary stage it will progress along the lines 
upon which it has started; if it should progress along 
other lines it may need even more than now a more 
highly developed individual mentality. 

There is another contingency. Should individual 
mental development follow some line such as we have 
suggested as a possibility, it may be that if social de- 

196 


FUTURE CHANGES 


velopment has already started it would not be ap- 
propriate to the new mental conditions and that it 
would consequently be a blind alley. In fact, such a 
social organization as the new development presup- 
poses might hinder rather than help a higher indi- 
vidual evolution. Or, on the other hand, if the sug- 
gested individual development, or some other form 
of development higher than the intellectual, should 
eventually come about, might it not also demand an 
entirely different sequel than the social? The whole 
matter is purely speculative, especially as we have 
not the requisite data to form the basis for well- 
grounded conclusions. 

It is not likely that animals of higher intellectual 
attainments than men ever existed, or ever will exist. 
The probability is that the highest intellectual de- 
velopment will come through man, though there is a 
possibility that if we specialize too much on pure in- 
tellectuality, there may come up some line of de- 
velopment for creatures now considered our inferiors, 
which will be superior to intelligence in adaptability, 
and mental evolution may sidetrack man and honor 
some other species which has so far had a more gen- 
eral but less intellectual career. This does not seem 
likely, however, for when we look at our tasks and 
consider our possibilities it appears that intellectual 
development may be but at its beginning instead of 
approaching its culmination. The basis for this opin- 


197 


MIND: ITS ORIGIN AND GOAL 


ion may be the same as that for immortality—a hope 
rather than a reasoned argument; we all feel as did 
Cecil Rhodes on his deathbed, “So much to do, so 
little done.” We look forward, either in the future 
of the individual after death or in the future of the 
race, to conditions which will permit us to do the 
things, the mere outlines of which we see dimly, and 
yet which are continually beckoning to us and lead- 
ing us on. If these things are to be accomplished, it 
‘can only be by a race with higher intelligence than 
our average, with some individuals higher than our 
present highest. At least so it seems to us now; a few 
generations ago our ancestors might have thought 
that a superior mentality would be required of a peo- 
ple who would fly through the air on the wings of the 
wind, who would dive under the sea with death-deal- 
ing vessels, who would talk to each other across 
continents without visible means, and whose vision 
would penetrate wood and stone. 

In addition to this hope we have the very reason- 
able method upon which to rely of judging the future 
by the past,—and the past has certainly shown us a 
steady, if slow, evolution pointing to different things, 
and the highest of these different things has been 
saved by the reason of its very efficiency. Kellogg 
thinks that the path which evolution will take has al- 
ready been determined and indicated, and that it 
must hold to the direction of intellect. The particular 

198 


FUTURE CHANGES 


reason for this is that intellect prescribed the perfect 
means of adaptation of the organisms to environment, 
or better, adaptation of environment to the organ- 
isms, which guarantees the permanence of this spe- 
cialization. Perhaps so, but could not the same thing 
have been said about instinct before the fuller de- 
velopment of intelligence put the ancestors of man 
above the insects? The efficiency of instinct saved it, 
the greater efficiency of intelligence saved it; shall 
we look forward to some new and as yet not fully de- 
veloped form of mentality to take a higher place than 
either or both of these? There is no reason for our 
thinking that the forces which have brought us to 
our present position are now exhausted. We must not 
be fettered by the limitations of our imagination; if 
we had seen the world at one time could we have 
prophesied life? If we had seen it shortly after the 
beginning of life could we have imagined man? Rus- 
kin has well said, “There is as yet no ascertained 
limit to the nobleness of person and mind which the 
human creature may attain, by persevering observ- 
ance of the laws of God respecting its birth and 
training.” 

If, as seems most likely, the intelligence of man 
shall develop far in excess of its present lofty posi- 
tion, eugenics, in the form of self-conscious evolution, 
will have to lead the way. It is inevitably the most 
important science, for all other sciences depend upon 


199 


MIND: ITS ORIGIN AND GOAL 


it. The best minds of the race should be concentrated 
upon it. With greatest care we must choose the most 
desirable stock, and insist upon breeding from that, 
and that only. It must be stock of such a character 
that it contains physical characteristics which best 
fit it for standing the strain of great mental endeavor; 
it must be mentally, not only intellectually, strong, 
but well balanced and stable; and above all it must 
abound in traits of moral and religious excellence, 
which seem to be the highest and latest development 
of the human race. When we consider the infinite 
plan unfolding steadily, unswervingly through years, 
millenniums, and ages—through periods of time in- 
comprehensible to man—these high points of attain- 
ment in the moral and religious life mean more than 
their loftiest development in itself, however wonder- 
ful that may be; for they are the promise of more 
wonderful things to come, the foothills of which are 
now our greatest altitudes. 

Nature has shown us the way. Not only has she 
laid emphasis upon the moral and religious life by 
placing it latest upon her great list of accomplish- 
ments, but she has definitely indicated that the in- 
stincts upon which it is founded are in the true line 
of progress. Those altruistic, self-sacrificing, life- 
giving instincts seem to have more survival value 
than the selfish, self-aggrandizing ones; the social 
animals which give up life for the members of the 


200 


FUTURE CHANGES 


flock or herd are inhabiting the earth, while the beasts 
of prey are doomed. Nature has crowned and honored 
these vital elements, and is pointing, in no uncertain 
way, to the moral and religious path as the road to 
progress and to security. The path may not always be 
clear, but the direction is plain. 


201 


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SUGGESTED READING LIST 


Tue following books are suggested for further reading. The 
writer is under obligation to these authors for much information, 
and, especially to some of them, for quotations used in the pre- 
ceding pages. 


Alexander, S. Space, Time, and Deity. London, Macmil- 
lan, 1920. 

Baitsell, G. A., ed. The Evolution of Man. New Haven, 
Yale University Press, 1922. 

Barry, F. R. Christianity and Psychology. New York, 
Doran, 1923. 

Bergson, H. L. Creative Evolution (tr. Mitchell). New 
York, Holt, rorr. 

Brigham, C. C. A Study of American Intelligence. Prince- 
ton, Princeton University Press, 1923. 

Conklin, E. G. The Direction of Human Evolution. New 
York, Scribner, 1921. 

Conklin, E. G. Heredity and Environment in the Develop- 
ment of Men. Princeton, Princeton University Press, 
1916. 

Cooley, C. H. “Genius, Fame and Comparison of Races.” 
Annals of the American Academy of Political and So- 
cial Science, May, 1897. 

Crookshank, F. G. The Mongol in Our Midst. New York, 
Dutton, 1924. 

Cutten, G. B. Psychological Phenomena of Christianity. 
New York, Scribner, 1908. 

Darwin, C. R. The Descent of Man. New York, Apple- 
ton, 1871. 

203 


MIND: ITS ORIGIN AND GOAL 


Dewey, John. Human Nature and Conduct. New York, 
Holt, 1922. 

Dixon, R. B. The Racial History of Man. New York, 
Scribner, 1923. 

Drever, James. Instinct in Man. New York, Putnam, 
IQI7. 

Fielding, W. J. The Caveman Within Us. New York, Dut- 
ton, 1922. 

Fiske, John. Excursions of an Evolutionist. Boston, 
Houghton, Mifflin Co., 1886. 

Fiske, John. Through Nature to God. Boston, Houghton, 
Mifflin Co., 1899. 

Ford, A. “Ants and Some Other Insects.” The Monist, 
I4: 33. (1904.) 

Galton, F. Hereditary Genius. New York, Appleton, 1884. 

Gould, C. W. America, A Family Matter. New York, 
Scribner, 1922. 

Grant, M. The Passing of the Great Race. New York, 
Scribner, 1916. 

Harris, George. Moral Evolution. Boston, Houghton, Mif- 
flin Co., 1896. 

Hirsch, W. Genius and Degeneration. New York, Apple- 
ton, 1896. 

Hobhouse, L. T. Mind in Evolution. London, Macmillan, 
IQOT. 

Hocking, W. E. Human Nature and Its Remaking. New 
Haven, Yale University Press, 1918. 

Holmes, 8S. J. The Evolution of Animal Intelligence. New 
York, Holt, torr. 

Humphrey, 8S. K. Mankind; Racial Values and the Racial 
Prospect. New York, Scribner, 1917. 

Hunter, W. S. ‘Modification of Instinct from the Stand- 


204 


SUGGESTED READING LIST 


point of Social Psychology.” Psychological Review, 27: 
247. (1920.) 

Huntington, E. The Character of Races. New York, Scrib- 
ner, 1924. 

Huxley, T. H. Man’s Place in Nature. New York, Apple- 
ton, 1899. 

Josey, C. C. The Social Philosophy of Instinct. New 
York, Scribner, 1922. 

King, I. The Development of Religion. London, Macmil- 
lan, 1905. 

Kellogg, V. Evolution the Way of Man. New York, Ap- 
pleton, 1924. 

Kropotkin, P. A. Mutual Aid. New York, Knopf, 1917. 

Laughlin, H. H. Analysis of America’s Modern Melting 
Pot. Hearings before U. S. Congress 67-3, House Com- 
mittee on Immigration and Naturalization, Nov. 21, 
1922. Serial 7-C. Government Printing Office. 

Leuba, J. H. “Fear, Awe, and the Sublime in Religion.” 
American Journal of Religious Psychology and Educa- 
$0211.) (1000,)) 

Leuba, J. H. Psychological Origin and Nature of Religion. 
London, Constable, 1909. 

Leuba, J. H. A Psychological Study of Religion. New 
York, Macmillan, 1912. 

Levine, I. The Unconscious. New York, Macmillan, 1923. 

Link, H. C. “Emotions and Instincts.” American Journal 
of Psychology, 32: 133. (1921.) 

Lubbock, J. Origin of Civilization and the Primitive Con- 
dition of Man. New York, Appleton, 1873. 

Lull, R. S. Organic Evolution. New York, Macmillan, 
IQI7. 

205 


MIND: ITS ORIGIN AND GOAL 


McDougall, W. Introduction to Social Psychology. Bos- 
ton, Luce, rort. 

McDougall, W. Is America Safe for Democracy? New 
York, Scribner, 1921. 

McDougall, W. Outline of Psychology. New York, Scrib- 
ner, 1923. 

Marshall, H. R. Instinct and Reason. New York, Duffield, 
1909. 

Miller, H. C. The New Psychology and the Preacher. New 
York, Seltzer, 1924. 

Mills, T. W. The Nature and Development of Animal in- 
telligence. New York, Macmillan, 1808. 

Mivart, St. G. The Origin of Human Reason. London, 
Benziger, 1889. 

Mivart, St. G. On the Genesis of Species. New York, Ap- 
pleton, 1871. 

Moss, S. A. “Evolution of Social Qualities.”” Open Court, 
805454201022.) 

Morgan, C. L. Emergent Evolution. London, Williams and 
Norgate, 1923. 

Osborn, H. F. Men of the Old Stone Age. New York, 
Scribner, 1915. 

Osborn, H. F. The Origin and Evolution of Life. New 
York, Scribner, 1917. 

Patrick, G. T. W. The Psychology of Social Reconstruc- 
tion. Boston, Houghton, Mifflin Co., 1920. 

Patten, W. Grand Strategy of Evolution. Boston, Badger, 
1920. 

Pearl, R. The Biology of Death. Philadelphia, Lippin- 
cott, Philadelphia, 1922. 

Pearson, Karl. Tuberculosis, Heredity and Environment. 
Cambridge (England) University Press, 1912. 


206 


SUGGESTED READING LIST 


Peckham, G. W. & E. G. “On Instincts and Habits of the 
Solitary Wasps.” Wisconsin Geology and Natural His- 
tory Survey, Bull. No. 2, 1898. 

Peckham, G. W. & E. G. Wasps, Social and Solitary. Bos- 
ton, Houghton, Mifflin Co., 1905. 

Ratzel, F. The History of Mankind. London, Macmillan, 
1896. | 

Rivers, W. H. R. Instinct and the Unconscious. Cambridge 
(England) University Press, 1920. 

Robinson, J. H. The Mind in the Making. New York, 
Harper, 1921. 

Romanes, G. J. Animal Intelligence. New York, Appleton, 
1883. 

Romanes, G. J. Mental Evolution in Man. New York, Ap- 
pleton, 1889. 

Saleeby, C. W. The Eugentc Prospect. New York, Dodd, 
Mead, & Co., 1921. 

Saleeby, C. W. Parenthood and Race Culture. London, 
Moffatt, 1909. 

Schroeder, T. ““Eroto Genetic Interpretation of Religion.” 
Journal of Religious Psychology, 7: 23. (1914.) 

Schwartz, O. L. General Types of Superior Men. Boston, 
Badger, 1916. 

Sellars, R. W. Evolutionary Naturalism. Open Court, 
London, 1922. 

Smith, G. E. Essays on the Evolution of Man. London, 
Oxford University Press, 1924. 

Smith, Langdon. Evolution. Boston, Luce, 1909. 

Spencer, Herbert. Principles of Psychology. 1855. (New 
Edition, Appleton, 1910.) 

Spencer, Herbert. Principles of Sociology. New York, Ap- 
pleton, 1897. 

207 


MIND: ITS ORIGIN AND GOAL 


Stoddard, L. The Revolt against Civilization. New York, 
Scribner, 1922. 

Stoddard, L. The Rising Tide of Color. New York, Scrib- 
ner, 1920. 

Stratton, G. M. Anger: Its Religious and Moral Signifi- 
cance. New York, Macmillan, 1923. 

Sutherland, A. The Origin and Growth of the Moral In- 
stinct. London, Longmans, 1808. 

Thomson, J. A. Science and Religion. New York, Scrib- 
ner, 1925. 

Thorndike, E. L. “Animal Intelligence.” Psychological 
Review, Monograph Supplement, Vol. 2, No. 4, 1898. 

Thorndike, E. L. “The Mental Life of Monkeys.” Psycho- 
logical Review, Monograph Supplement, Vol. 3, No. — 
15, I9Ol. 

Thorndike, E. L. “The Original Nature of Man.” In Edu- 
cational Psychology, Teachers College, Columbia Uni- 
versity, New York, 1913-1914. 

Trotter, W. Instincts of the Herd in Peace and War. New 
York, Macmillan, 1916. 

Tufts, J. H. “Our Moral Evolution.” In Studies in Phi- 
losophy and Psychology. Boston, Houghton, Mifflin Co., 
1906. 

Tylor, E. B. Primitive Culture. New York, Holt, 1873. 

Wallis, W. D. “Element of Fear in Religion.” American 
Journal of Religious Psychology and Education, 5: 257. 
(I912.) 

Washburn, M. F. The Animal Mind. New York, Macmil- 
lan, 1917. 

Weismann, A. The Evolution Theory (tr. by J. A. & 
M. R. Thomson). London, Arnold, 1904. 


208 


SUGGESTED READING LIST 


Westermarck, E. A. Origin and Development of the Moral 
Ideas. London, Macmillan, 1906. 

Whitnall, H. O. The Dawn of Mankind. Boston, Badger, 
1924. 

Wiggam, A. E. The New Decalogue of Science. Indianapo- 
lis, Bobbs Merrill, 1923. 

Woodburne, A. S. “Relation of Religion to Instinct.” 
American Journal of Theology, 23: 319. (1919.) 

Woodworth, R. S. “Racial Difference in Mental Traits.” 
Science, N.S. Vol. 31, p. 171. 

Wright, W. K. “Instinct and Sentiment in Religion.” 
Philosophical Review, 25: 28. (1916.) 

Yerkes, R. M., ed. Psychological Examining in the United 
States Army. Washington, Government Printing Office, 
1921. 


209 











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INDEX 


ANGER, 5. 

Anthropomorphism, 22. 

Ants, 90, 102, 195. 

Apes, 19, 25, 29, 35, 50, 65, OI. 

Association, 27, 30, 31, 37, 54; 
87 f. 


BarKER, S. O., 94. 

Bees, 90, 102, 195. 
Behaviorism, 4. 

Birds, 102 f. 

Blind Tom, 140. 

Body, origin of, 1. 

Brain, 45 f.; size of, 48 ff. 
Brigham, C. C., 158, 170. 


CaEsaR, J., 141. 

Carlyle, T., 11. 

Celibacy, 78, 151 f. 

Chalmers, T., 36. 

Colgate University faculty, 157. 
Conklin, E. G., 195. 

Crime, 1009 f. 

Cultural Epochs, 59. 


Darwin, C., 2, 7, 33, 96, 168, 
174. 

Defectives, mental, 16, 153 ff., 
3c 1aO, 

Descartes, R., 141. 

Difference, mental, 142 ff. 

Divorce, 116. 

Drummond, H., 37. 


EASE, DANGER OF, 181 ff. 
Educational changes, 159 f. 
Eimer, G. H. T., 60. 
Emotion, 72 f. 
Environment, II, 1905. 


Eugenics, 15, 18, 100, 107f.,, 
147 ff., 153 ff., 156 ff., 164 ff., 
185 ff. 

Evolution, definition of, 33; 
mental, 3 ff., 10, 12; 18, 60, 
Chaps. VIII and XI; Or- 
ganic, 2 ff., 18, 21; theory of, 
18 f., 60. 


FEAR, 62, 121 f., 120. 
France, A., 13. 
Franklin, B., 149. 
Freud, S., 9 f. 


GENIUS, 137 f., 144, 188 f. 
Gould, C. W., 168, 175, 176. 
Grant, M., 165. 


HaBItT, 60, 72, 183. 

Hal eG Ss.) 3 sa1is: 

Harvard University graduates, 
157, 163. 

Hauser, K., 25 f. 

Helmholtz, H. L. F., 141. 

Henry, P., 140. 

Hobhouse, L. T., 71, 185. 

Holmes, O. W., 141, 

Holmes, S. J., 28, 87. 

Humphrey, S. K., 167. 

Huxley, 6 ten bs 07452 75+ 

Hypnotism, 40, 1809 f. 


IDEAS, 26. 

Immigration, 172, 177. 

Immortality, 33. 

Infancy, 56. 

Inheritance, social, 24, 26, 178, 
185; biological, 24, 178, 185. 

Instinct, 13, 36, Chaps. IV and 


211 


INDEX 


ViprorwtecaoOsi r2On 124 ts, 
199; gregarious, 39, 9I, I12, 
121 f.; list of, 74; origin of, 
66 f. 

Intelligence, 64 ff., Chap. V., 
128f., Chap. VIII; animal, 
28f.; bunching of, 137 f.; 
decline of, Chaps. IX and X; 
future of, Chap. XI. 

Irving, W., 140. 

Isomerism, 43 f., 123. 


JAMES, W., 8, 30, 183. 
KELLOGG, V., 108. 


Lamarck, J. B. P. A., 66, 69. 
Laughlin, H. H., 173. 
Lewes, G. H., 66. 


MAN, PREHISTORIC, 50, 134 f. 

Marriages, late, 1509 ff. 

McDougall, W., 25, 28, 72, 73, 
FLT ITS eer A. ico. 

Mind, definition of, 45 f.; ori- 
gin of, 1. 

Monkeys, 19, 27, 29, 65, oI. 

Morals, 37 ff., Chap. VI, 125, 
127 ff., 106 ff. 


NERVOUS SYSTEM, 54. 
Newcomb, S., 175. 


Osporn, H. F., 164. 
Overloading, 178 ff. 


PARALLELISMS, 47, 51, 54, 56. 
Pasteur, L., 175. 

Patrick, G. T. W., 181. 
Péearlinkn i103: 

Pearson, K., 182. 

Peckham, G. W. and E. G., 86. 
Philanthropy, 16, 153 f. 


Prehistoric man, 50, 134 f. 

Prever, Wait nes 

Psychoanalysis, 14 f., 193. 

Psychology, comparative, 4, 5, 
21 f.; crowd, 39; experimen- 
tal, 4; physiological, 4. 


Races oF MEN, 135 f., 140, 154, 
164 ff.) 77. 

Reason, 13, 63, 118. 

Recapitulation, 55 ff., 181. 

Reflexes, 69, 82. 

Religion, 6, 8, 36f., Chap. VII, 
106 ff. 

Rhodes, C., 198. 

Rivers, W. H. R., ror. 

Romanes, G. J., 3, 60, 96. 

Rome, 90 f., 165, 166, 176. 

Roosevelt, T., 162. 

Ruskin, J., 199. 


Sayce, A. H., 32. 

Science, 128 f. 

Seashore, C. E., 144. 

Selection, natural, 32, 70. 

Sentiment, 126 f. 

Sex; 36, 57 f.): 101, E85 tak ete 
130, 

Shand, A. F., 126. 

Sight, 53, roof. 

Smell, 53, roof. 

Smith, G. E., 48, 52, 64. 

Smith, L., 95: 

Soul, o. 

Specialization, 186 ff. 

Speech; 23; 20its 54a, etoae 

spencer, SH.) 3,094. 00) 

Sterilization, 154. 

Sublimation, 36, 78, 98, 101, 
119, 139. 

Sutherland, A., 101, 107, 111. 


TELEPATHY, 45, rot f. 


212 


INDEX 


Tests, mental, 15, 17, 141 ff., | WAGNER, C., 180. 


B7D: Wallace, A. R., 97. 
Thorndike, E. L., 27, 28, 29, | War, 14, 147 ff. 

31, 104, 108. Wasp, 63, 67, 85 ff. 
Trotter, W., o1 f. Wundt, W., 60. 
VARIETY, 33, 142 ff. YERKES, R. M., 28. 


Vassar College graduates, 157. | Yucca moth, 67. 


213 








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